Marc Turner > Quotes

“As it happens I’ve spent a night and a day going through your records. Fascinating stuff.” Kempis took a roll of parchment from his cloak and tossed it onto the desk. “You know what really bugs me?” Enli steepled his hands. “I’m on tenterhooks.” “Anolamies.” “Anomalies?” “Them too.”
― Marc Turner, Dragon Hunters

“Sometimes memories warm you, but more often they serve only to remind you of things lost. To live with the past, you need to have a future too.”
― Marc Turner, Dragon Hunters

“A serving-girl leapt from Luker’s path as he strode along the corridor, his Will bunched tightly inside him. His footsteps set the floor shuddering, and the doors to either side rattled in their frames. His thoughts burned. Jenna alive should have cooled some of the fire in his blood, but the juripa spirits were simmering in his veins, and his face was hot like he could still feel the touch of the sorceress’s flames. He reached out with his senses, exploring the rooms to either side of the passage until he found what he was looking for. You should have run when you had the chance.
Stopping before a door, he unleashed his Will. The door creaked, buckled, exploded inward.”
― Marc Turner, When the Heavens Fall

“Well I haven’t. Forgotten, that is. In the dome, you admitted I’m the better shot.”
“Must’ve taken a blow to the head. Amazing the stuff people come out with when the world’s spinning.”
Jenna searched his eyes. “You’d take it all back, then? The things you said?”
Luker kept her waiting while he took a sip from the flask. “No,” he replied at last, holding her gaze. “No, I wouldn’t.”
― Marc Turner, When the Heavens Fall

“The boards trembled.
A dragon's head reared up off the Fury's starboard bow, streaming water. Its silver plates were scratched and tarnished like an old suit of armour, and atop its brow was a crown of scales from which hung strands of fireweed like tangles of hair. Up, up, it went, so high it put a crick in Amerel's neck just tracking it. Its eyes were so large they could have taken in the world, yet they seemed to be looking straight at the Guardian. Its lips peeled back with a sound like a hundred swords being drawn from their scabbards, and it gave a roar that set the foresails shivering.”
― Marc Turner, Red Tide

“The gods cared nothing for the fate of mortals, and those who prayed to them for benediction were no less fools than those who railed against them when the winds of fortune turned contrary. The truth was, people believed in divine stewardship because they wanted to believe the gods would protect them. Because it was safer to have faith in some higher order than it was to acknowledge the precariousness of their lives.”
― Marc Turner, Dragon Hunters

“the same sorcery that had defeated the attempts of Senar and a handful of other Guardians to punch through the gates of the titan fortress in Karalat two years ago. Memories of that day came back to him: shoving Luker Essendar aside so he could be first up the ladder to the battlements, arrows flitting through an evening sky shot through with bronze”
― Marc Turner, Dragon Hunters

“He closed his eyes. Mazana or Avallon, Avallon or Mazana. The choice seemed no clearer now than it had ever been. The future offered two paths, but what did you do when you wanted to walk both, you wanted to walk neither?
The answer seemed obvious suddenly. You made your own path, of course. A new path entirely.
He opened his eyes again. In the room behind, Kolloken was whistling.
You mean you ain’t done worse in your time?
Senar pictured Uriel sitting next to Mazana in Olaire, learning to use water-magic. The Guardian hadn’t known the boy well. In truth, he’d never tried to get to know him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the sting of his death. Maybe in Kolloken’s place he would have done the same; he didn’t know. What he did know, though, was that he wouldn’t have been whistling about it afterward. He wouldn’t have blamed Mazana for what happened like he was the one who’d been wronged.
A coldness settled on him, and he pushed himself away from the wall.
Then he turned and went back into Kolloken’s room, closing the door behind.”
― Marc Turner, Red Tide

“The best leaders were those who could see farther than others. And that would be Galantas's task here tonight: keep his kinsmen's gazes directed to the horizon so they didn't notice him digging the ground out from under their feet.”
― Marc Turner, Red Tide

“The kalischa held back a smile. Faith? What was faith but the last bastion of those who had abandoned all grip on reason?”
― Marc Turner, Dragon Hunters

“Life or death decided by a hairbreadth. That's just the way it was.”
― Marc Turner, Dragon Hunters

“What was she thinking? This couldn't be murder; this was war. Killing wasn't murder if you stole the victim's country while you were at it.”
― Marc Turner, Red Tide

“diplomacy was nothing more than the gilding on the scabbard of a hidden blade.”
― Marc Turner, Red Tide

“Regrets, she’d always considered, were for those stupid enough to think tomorrow might hold less disappointment than today.”
― Marc Turner, Dragon Hunters