Layton Green > Quotes

“When I read and when I write, I need at least one character who is a decent soul—flawed, but striving to be good—to hold my interest, and probably even to drive the story.”
― Layton Green

“Remember when I told you I knew about you? You interrupted me. I wasn’t going to say I sympathized with you; I was going to say I didn’t give a damn. Life is hard for everyone, some more than others. But the damage you cause to other people, that’s on you. Your pain has made you into a monster.”
― Layton Green, The Diabolist

“he heard a rich English accent, a sultry female voice possessed of impeccable diction and brimming with intelligence. Not English, he corrected. African. Zimbabwean.”
― Layton Green, The Shadow Cartel

“If I have a child who dies before I do, I’ll believe in heaven.”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“The mountains surrounding Sofia faded into vast wooded slopes hiding villages in the crooks and curves of the hills, little stone children poking out from behind their mothers’ green skirts.”
― Layton Green, The Egyptian

“prize. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I’m a human nature realist.”
― Layton Green, The Metaxy Project

“The older we get, the more mortality looks us in the face and grins”
― Layton Green, The Metaxy Project

“Because real alchemists understand that the test tube is just a vehicle. Alchemy is about the process of transformation, my boy. Not of lead to gold, but of the spirit. Understanding the universe. Applying the secrets of the ancients to the follies of the present. The elixir, the philosopher’s stone: they’re not just recipes. They are life itself.”
― Layton Green, The Egyptian

“There is no orisha that demands more blood than Esu. The more blood that is shed, the more suffering involved in the sacrifice, the more pleased he becomes, the more willing to grant what is asked.”
― Layton Green, The Summoner

“Miami’s like any banana republic, a pair of perky silicone titties surrounded by a cancer-ridden body.”
― Layton Green, The Shadow Cartel

“You should give reading a try. I can help with the letters.”
― Layton Green, Written in Blood

“Once something is written it becomes a truth of its own, a self-contained, immutable work presented to the eyes of the reader without inflection, to interpret as you will.”
― Layton Green, The Diabolist

“Sometimes he wondered if Africa hadn’t been cursed for having too much beauty.”
― Layton Green, The Summoner

“From Preach’s time as a prison chaplain, before he joined the Atlanta PD, he knew the true horror of incarceration was not the loss of freedom, but the daily choices one was forced to make to survive. Navigating the jungle without becoming one of the animals. Most people that landed behind bars—not all, but most—had disadvantaged upbringings and poor choices to blame. It was prison that turned them into criminals.”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“A crime against a child was a stain on the human race”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“Like all those who have lived their lives on the outskirts of society, his desire for acceptance was as powerful as his inability to find it.”
― Layton Green, The Summoner

“As Preach waited for her to appear, he couldn’t get a quote from Kierkegaard out of his mind. “The truth is a trap,” the philosopher had once written. “You cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“Sometimes everyone needed to be around that friend who loved you no matter what, despite your colossal, irreversible character flaws. Not family, he thought, because they have to love you, but a friend dealing with the absurdities of life just like him, and who has chosen him to share them with.”
― Layton Green, The Brothers Three

“Who among us is innocent, and who among us can judge?”
― Layton Green, The Metaxy Project

“Alchemy has never been a science for the dilettante. It’s a lifelong journey for enlightenment.”
― Layton Green, The Egyptian

“Never mistake education for intelligence, and especially not for drive.”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“To ward off the chill, Preach buttoned his double-breasted, forest green overcoat, the same one he had worn his entire career. Ari teased him about it, but the musty smell kept him grounded. Connected to all the cases that had shaped him as an officer, for better and for worse.”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“Funny how terrified we are of inchoate things when our reality is far more desperate.”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“Even worse: she had known a father’s true love, and because she once had, she felt her loneliness all the more keenly.”
― Layton Green, A Shattered Lens

“When do we step away from circumstances and find out who we really are?
When do we take the time to reflect and, if we're really self-disciplined, actually make a change?”
― Layton Green, The Metaxy Project

“Dida was staring thoughtfully at the wall. He ran a hand down one of the rune-inscribed pillars. “Perhaps it was not a guardian. If not dispelled, all wards disintegrate over time, though the most powerful can last for hundreds—thousands—of years. These oldest of wards have been known to slowly dissolve and can . . . leak . . . magic.” Adaira frowned. “I’ve heard of this phenomenon, but how does that account for the creature we fought?” “Given the power in these runes and the time that has passed . . .” Dida shrugged. “I cannot be sure, but I suspect the entity was a residue of old magic. Ignited perhaps by oxygen or even our light spell, forming a half-life, imitating the only forms it knew.” “So magic—spirit—is alive?”
― Layton Green, The Last Cleric

“bookshop, a denizen of the present once more. He”
― Layton Green, The Diabolist

“Res ipsa loquitor”
― Layton Green, The Metaxy Project

“True honesty was a myth anyway, he mused. No one revealed the entirety of self”
― Layton Green, The Diabolist

“It takes far more courage to love than to hate.”
― Layton Green, A War of Wizards