Eduard Popa > Eduard's Quotes

“There’s something brittle in me that will break before it bends.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns

“We die a little every day and by degrees we’re reborn into different men, older men in the same clothes, with the same scars.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“This is where the wise man turns away. This is where the holy kneel and call on God. These are the last miles, my brothers. Don't look to me to save you. Don't think I will not spend you. Run if you have the wit. Pray if you have the soul. Stand your ground if courage is yours. But don't follow me.

Follow me, and I will break your heart.”
― Mark Lawrence, Emperor of Thorns

“We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretence of understanding. We paper over the voids in our comprehension with science or religion, and make believe that order has been imposed.”
― Mark Lawrence

“Sometimes the world slows and you notice every small thing, as if you stood between two beats of eternity's heart.”
― Mark Lawrence

“We’re built of contradictions, all of us. It’s those opposing forces that give us strength, like an arch, each block pressing the next. Give me a man whose parts are all aligned in agreement and I’ll show you madness. We walk a narrow path, insanity to each side. A man without contradictions to balance him will soon veer off.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“I dropped the head and kicked it into the crowd. I say “kicked” but in truth it’s a bad idea to kick a head. I learned that years ago, a lesson that cost me two broken toes. What you want to do is shove the head with the side of your foot, like you’re throwing it. It’s going to roll anyhow so you don’t need that much force. See, the thing about severed heads is the owner no longer has any interest in minimizing the force of the blow, or any ability to do so for that matter. When you kick somebody in the head as you do from time to time, they tend to be actively trying to move themselves out of the way and the contact is lessened. A severed head is a dead weight, even if it’s watching you.

And that exhausts my insights into the kicking of severed heads. Admittedly it’s more than most people have to offer on the subject but there were Mayans who knew a lot more than I do. That of course is a whole different ball-game.”
― Mark Lawrence

“The world eats good men for breakfast.”
― Mark Lawrence

“A Dark time comes.
My time.
If it offends you.
Stop Me.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“I watched her backside as she went. I thought perhaps I wouldn't die if I could still find time to watch a well-crafted bottom”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“You're going now?" Makin asked, putting down his bottle-in-a-basket.

"Well, unless you want to drink till we're all sunburnt and maudlin and then declare undying love for each other and part with drunken hugs?" I said.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“Makin once told me that a man who's got no fear is missing a friend.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“So what was that about?" Makin asked, striding up behind.

"They shot my idiot," I said.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“No answer, just a squeal of brakes, a shrill “Fuck,” and static.”
― N.E. White, Lucky or Unlucky?: 13 Stories of Fate

“Many men do not look their part. Wisdom may wait behind a foolish smile, bravery can gaze from eyes that cry fright.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“As a child there's a horror in discovering the limitations of the ones you love. The time you find that your mother cannot keep you safe, that your tutor makes a mistake, that the wrong path must be taken because the grown-ups lack the strength to take the right one...each of those moments is the theft of your childhood, each of them a blow that kills some part of the child you were, leaving another part of the man exposed, a new creature, tougher but tempered with bitterness and disappointment.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“We all practice self-deception to a degree; no man can handle complete honesty without being cut at each turn. There's not enough room in a man's head for sanity alongside each grief, each worry, each terror that he owns. I’m well used to burying such things in a dark cellar and moving on.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Fools

“A fool may scrawl on a slate and if no one has the wit to wipe it clean for a thousand years, the scrawl becomes the wisdom of ages.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“Being in charge can seem like a thing iron-forged, but in the end it’s just an idea everyone agrees to.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

“There are truths you know but will not speak. Even to yourself in the darkness where we are all of us alone. There are memories you see and yet don't see.”
― Mark Lawrence, Emperor of Thorns

“The night can last twenty hours and even when the day finally breaks it never gets above a level of cold I call “fuck that”—as in you open the door, your face freezes instantly to the point where it hurts to speak, but manfully you manage to say “fuck that,” before turning round, and going back to bed.”
― Mark Lawrence, The Liar's Key

“The bladder-pipe, a local Highlands speciality, is to music what warthogs are to mathematics. Largely unconnected.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“When a decision is inevitable you may as well take it as quick as possible so that you still have something left to deal with whatever consequences may arise.”
― Mark Lawrence, Emperor of Thorns

“The breaking of day changes all things, Snorri. Nothing endures beyond the count of the sun. Pile a sufficient weight of mornings upon a thing and it will change. Even the rocks themselves will not outlast the morning.”
― Mark Lawrence, The Liar's Key

“And when pain bites, men bargain. Boys too. We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentors what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can't escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“I’m a liar and a cheat and a coward, but I will never, ever, let a friend down. Unless of course not letting them down requires honesty, fair play, or bravery.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Fools

“Humanity can be divided into madmen and cowards. My personal tragedy is in being born into a world where sanity is held to be a character flaw.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Fools

“Fear is a valuable commodity, it’s common sense compressed into its purest form.”
― Mark Lawrence, The Liar's Key

“You can't grow if you're constantly defined by this collection of frozen moments that you keep returning to. And if you can't grow, you're not alive.”
― Mark Lawrence, Emperor of Thorns

“All of us fractured, awkward collages of experience wrapped tight to present a defensible face to the world. And what makes us human is that sometimes we snap. And in that moment of release we’re closer to gods than we know.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns