Red Sister Quotes

“Burn bright, take up arms, and fight the bitch.”
― Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

“The trip from could to should is short and allows little time for reflection.”
― Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

“...but one word will break a heart, two will mend it, and three will lay the highest low.”
― Mark Lawrence, Holy Sister

“Moons might rise and fall, empires wax and wane, even the stars come and go, but there are constants too, and though the story of our kind is ever-changing it is also the same.”
― Mark Lawrence, Holy Sister

“There is, in the act of destruction, a beauty which we try to deny, and a joy which we cannot. Children build to knock down, and though we may grow around it, that need runs in us, deeper than our blood.

Violence is the language of destruction, flesh so often the subject, fragile, easy to break beyond repair, precious; what else would be burn to make the world take note?”
― Mark Lawrence

“Ma stai attenta Nona: un libro è pericoloso come qualsiasi viaggio tu possa intraprendere. La persona che finisce di sfogliare l'ultima pagina può non essere più la stessa che ha aperto la prima. Tratta i libri con rispetto.”
― Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

“Nona would have given a lot for some company. The other four beds remained empty and she soon reached the point where pushing someone down the stairs in order to fill on of them seemed quite a reasonable solution.”
― Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

“On the ice the wind roars. Here you hear a whisper and think you know cold.”
― Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

“If we spent our whole lives here we would have little to offer the world and know little enough of the world to have context for our prayer …’ Seeing Nona’s frown she spoke more simply. ‘We wouldn’t understand what we’re praying for. Without knowing the chaos and confusion that washes all around this plateau, our Rock of Faith, we could not appreciate the serenity we seek.’ Abbess Glass paused and fixed Nona with dark eyes. It seemed important to her that Nona understand … that Nona believe. ‘I wasn’t always a nun. I had a son and I breathed for him. When we buried him my sorrow consumed me. Was my grief holy? Was it unique? All our hurts and follies are repeated time and again. Generation after generation live the same mistakes. But we’re not like the fire, or the river, or the wind – we’re not a single tune, its variations played out forever, a game of numbers until the world dies. There’s a story written in us. Your parents – your father and his ice tunnels, your mother and her Church of Hope, both of them, whether they loved you or left you, are in you bone-deep, remembered in your blood.”
― Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

“I know plenty. I’ve seen plenty. More than you can see from up here in your nice warm convent, paid for by all the people working down there in the city and out in the Corridor growing your food from the mud. What good is holy if it can’t feed and clothe itself? This is a place to turn children into old women, praying for the sins of the world and never seeing them.’ Some of the words were her father’s but she owned all the anger. ‘What good is holy if it watches my friend die – not because she did something wrong but because her blood wasn’t good enough?”
― Mark Lawrence, Red Sister

“It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.”
― Mark Lawerence