Riley Rookhouse > Quotes

“Emerald shook his head and kept his eyes on the cobbles. [Don’t worry about it, Crim. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.] Somehow, he failed to register that the regularity of such behavior was precisely the source of my concern.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Swamp Song: World of Heavenfall

“Still, I was more concerned for Emerald’s well-being on that front than my own. I would much rather be reliant on a man like him than free to live my own life in a world where he did not exist. I wondered whether it would have made a difference if I’d told him that.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Swamp Song: World of Heavenfall

“But to my mind, the idea that love is a poison only serves the narrative of those who wish to harm us.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Swamp Song: World of Heavenfall

“The brotherhood that ran an orphanage for undesirable children.” He snorted at the words, but his grimace lacked the barest trace of mirth. I had not met enough children to have a clear sense of what my friend would have looked like as a child, but I felt a profound mix of pity and anger on behalf of that little boy. Undesirable. What a wretched thing to say about anyone. Even worse, Emerald believed it.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Swamp Song: World of Heavenfall

“Modesty did not suit me, but desperate times called for desperate trappings, and though it pained me, I had risen to the challenge.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Swamp Song: World of Heavenfall

“There are only a few of us in his life who care about him, but the thing is, he doesn’t listen to us. It’s as if any kind word we have for him doesn’t matter half as much as the awful things strangers say.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Swamp Song: World of Heavenfall

“How did Regis feel, when he found out that Ianna had given him half a life? I wondered. Was he grateful? Or did he resent that he was bound to her forever because she wasn’t sure how to live without him? The rain fell harder, and the night offered no reply.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Swamp Song: World of Heavenfall

“The sensation was a nightmare, worse than anything that I had ever felt, more vindictive and malicious than even Emerald's feelings toward himself. And worse of all, at the heart of that white hot core of anger, was another emotion so bound up with my attacker's fury that it was functionally indistinguishable from his ire:
Love.
His rage was rooted in love, a corruption so deepseated that it turned what should have been a bright and joyous emotion into a blight that spread through every corner of his mind.”
― Riley Rookhouse, Tale of the Hidden Village: World of Heavenfall