Brent Weeks Quotes & Sayings

You may have won, Cenaria was saying, but your victory is no triumph. You can force me from my home, but you will not live in it. I will leave you nothing but scorched earth. — Brent Weeks

All power is a test. — Brent Weeks

Elene gasped and sat up. "Kylar Thaddeus Stern!"
Kylar giggled. "Thaddeus? That's a good one. I knew a Thaddeus once."
"So did I. He was a blind idiot."
"Really?" Kylar said, his eyes dancing. "The one I knew was famous for his gigantic-"
"Kylar!" Elene interrupted, motioning toward Uly.
"His gigantic what?" Uly asked.
"Now you did it." Elene said, "His gigantic what, Kyler?"
"Feet. And you know what they say about big feet." He winked lasciviously at Elene.
"What?" Uly asked.
"Big Shoes," Kylar said. — Brent Weeks

King: "You're ... you're shit! You shitting, shitting shit!"
"Your Majesty," Durzo said gravely. "A man of your stature's cursing vocabulary ought to extend beyond a tedious reiteration of the excreta that fills the void between his ears. — Brent Weeks

The perfect killer has no conscience. — Brent Weeks

There's a divinity that shapes beauty from our rough hewn lives. — Brent Weeks

A few months ago you assassinated a man who called himself a god; now you're going after a goddess in truth. Unless you can figure out a way to kill continents, after this you're going to have to retire. — Brent Weeks

As they were walked closer, Kip saw that his inference was correct: every single person here was a drafter. There had to be eight hundred or a thousand drafters here! "Orholam," Karris breathed. "There must be five hundred drafters here." So I can't count, so what? — Brent Weeks

A king made choices for other people based on information they didn't have. That was the burden of rule. — Brent Weeks

Just because it's a dream doesn't mean it's a lie. — Brent Weeks

The only life you have the right to sacrifice for the greater good is your own. — Brent Weeks

Let me make this real simple. You will not break me. The hole will not break me. I will not break. I will not be broken. — Brent Weeks

Nocta Hemata. The Night of Passion. The Night of Abandon. — Brent Weeks

With no small amount of swagger, Gavin Greyling said, "I remember Gavin fucking Guile, who won the False Prism's War, who outwitted the Thorn Conspirators and ended the Red Cliff Uprising. Gavin Guile, who brought low pirate kings and bandit lords, who ended the Blood Wars with wits and one deadly wave of his hand, who brought justice to the Seven Satrapies. Gavin Guile, who hunted wights and criminals, who built Brightwater Wall in less than a week, who aborted the birth of gods, destroyed at least two bane, and killed a god full fledged at Ruic Head. Gavin Guile, who faced a sea demon and lived, saving all the people of Garriston and the Blackguard, too. Gavin Guile, who sank Pash vecchio's great ship Gargantua with a rat. Gavin Guile, who armed us for war and gave the Blackguard the seas entire with ou sea chariots and hull wreckers. Gavin Guile, heart of our heart, our Promachos, the one who goes before us in war, who came and conquered and will come again. — Brent Weeks

But emptiness can't be threatened. Emptiness holds nothing dear. Emptiness knows no fear. — Brent Weeks

Kip looked up at him and grinned. Don't you know what I am? I'm the fucking turtle-bear. — Brent Weeks

Maybe when you were born on the top of the mountain you could pretend the mountain didn't matter, but those who climbed it and those born at its base who could never climb at all knew differently. — Brent Weeks

It wasn't just hunger[ ... ] Hunger wasn't comfortable, but it was familiar and it was nothing to fear. This was a thirst, like his whole body was parched, drying up, about to crumple. He was dying of thirst on the shores of the world's biggest lake.
None of it was for him. To him, that lake was an ocean. It was salt sea that if he drank would make him thirstier and thirstier until he went mad and died. — Brent Weeks

I don't know. I don't remember. What does it matter? — Brent Weeks

Ecause the only kind of love I have to offer is stupid and blind and so deep and powerful that I feel like I'm cracking just to hold it in. — Brent Weeks

Survivors are willing to make sacrifices. — Brent Weeks

He had them heart and soul and strength, not because he gave them a respect they didn't deserve, but because he expected them to deliver the best they were able to deliver, always, and he thought their best was better than they thought it was. This — Brent Weeks

To be king means to accept that others will pay the price of your failures
and even your successes. — Brent Weeks

My question is, do you believe in an evil possessed of its own purity? or does every act intend some good? ... — Brent Weeks

The intuition that had kept Kylar from Vi even from the first time she'd tried to seduce him at the Drake estate suddenly crystallized: You don't share your life with a woman's body, you share your life with a woman. — Brent Weeks

Do you know why you feel destined for something greater?"
"Why?" Kip asked, quiet, hopeful.
"Because you're an arrogant little shit. — Brent Weeks

Words were another sword for the man who wielded them well. — Brent Weeks

Analogies are lies grown-ups tell. — Brent Weeks

My writing has a lot of surprising twists. — Brent Weeks

I think that fiction is an excellent place for us to struggle with questions of good and evil, and humanity and inhumanity. — Brent Weeks

despite the passage of time, it wasn't getting any better. — Brent Weeks

I don't know how you've managed a tan," Daydra said, "but you'll have to keep it up, and talk like a pirate. If you want to work for Momma K, you're going to be the Sethi pirate girl. You have a husband or a lover?" Kaldrosa hesitated.
"Husband," she admitted. "The last beating nearly killed him."
"If you do this, you'll never get him back. A man can forgive a woman who leaves whoring for him, but he'll never forgive one who goes whoring for him."
"It's worth it," Kaldrosa said. "To save his life, it's worth it. — Brent Weeks

Tell them the Night Angel walks. Tell them Justice is come. — Brent Weeks

Alexas the blessed ... was a good kid." Durzo laughed. Then his smile faded. "Broke my heart to kill him. But he needed killing by the end. — Brent Weeks

Magic requires will, but words shape will, turn it, direct it, reflect it from one target to another. — Brent Weeks

Why is it, my shadow-striding friend, that we don't fear dreams? We lose consciousness, lose control, things happen with no apparent logic and abiding by no apparent rules ... We don't fear dreams, but we do fear madness, and death terrifies us. — Brent Weeks

A man can forgive a woman who leaves whoring for him, but he'll never forgive one who goes whoring for him. — Brent Weeks

Something fierce and primal was rising inside him. Something inside him said, where others have failed, have faltered, have fallen, I will be triumphant; I am different; I am cut of a new cloth; I will rise. "Call me King," he said, and he smiled a fuck-you through the angst and the sorrow, and he was potent. — Brent Weeks

I oh wha ih eenz, idj," Vi said, though it was a lie. — Brent Weeks

Attack dolphins. What the hell was that? Dolphins were supposed to be nice. — Brent Weeks

A wet boy has a deader, an assassin has a target, because assassins sometimes miss. — Brent Weeks

One doesn't sent a lion to kill a rat. — Brent Weeks

They were intent, utterly focused, fearful of letting the commander down, but not fearful. He had them heart and soul and strength, not because he gave them a respect they didn't deserve, but because he expected them to deliver the best they were able to deliver, always, and he thought their best was better than they thought it was. This was a great man in action. It was a quiet greatness. — Brent Weeks

Sometimes after a compliment about my characterization skills, I'm asked if I model my characters on real people. Emphatically, no. And sort of, yes. — Brent Weeks

To be a man is to bring together that which you should be and that which you are. Deception is darkness. — Brent Weeks

The God gives simpler problems to lesser men. — Brent Weeks

Count Drake had told him that life was precious, that suicide was a coward's way out, a sin against the God by flinging his gift back in his holy face. — Brent Weeks

They were mirrors to each other. Gwinvere Kirena would have been perfect for him - if he could love what he saw in the mirror. — Brent Weeks

Why am I attracted to her butt? How weird is that? Why do men like butts anyway? — Brent Weeks

I'm not dreaming this, am I?" he asked.
Dehvi lifted an eyebrow. "There's only one way to know for sure," he said.
What's that?"
Go piss in the woods. If you feel wet and warm afterward, wake up. — Brent Weeks

I'll spend my life training just for the moment I have my chance at you. I'll wait until you think I've forgotten today. I'll wait until you think it was just a dumb guild rat's threat. After I'm a master, you'll jump at shadows for a while. But after you jump a dozen times and I'm not there, you won't jump just once, and that's when I'll be there. I don't care if you kill me at the same time. I'll trade my life for yours. — Brent Weeks

I was a bad child. Fortunately, I've come a long way since then. Now I'm a bad man. — Brent Weeks

A lie told in the service of truth is virtue. — Brent Weeks

He didn't make me pay all that I owed, but maybe I had to be willing to pay the full price. That's how repentance is different from regret. — Brent Weeks

You're amazing," Kylar said.
~I know.~
"Humble, too. — Brent Weeks

Bewildered as he might be, sometimes a man's highest calling is simply to stand, and hug. — Brent Weeks

Non takuulam. I shall not serve. — Brent Weeks

I'm like the dog with a bone who crossed a low bridge in the fable. I see another dog passing beneath me carrying a bone, and I snap to take his bone - and drop my own into the water, into my reflection. — Brent Weeks

I believe that it's an author's job to cast his imagination into the far spaces. Your life should - and I think it's inescapable that it will - inform your work. I'm all for using anything that can make your art better, but your intuition should be an equal partner. — Brent Weeks

We're victims of our own refined tastes. — Brent Weeks

An oath you only keep when it's convenient isn't an oath at all. — Brent Weeks

We are the stories we tell about ourselves. But when those stories are lies, we are the most surprised of all. — Brent Weeks

**A Dedication from Brent Weeks to his older Brother**
For Kevin, because it's a big brother's job to make a little brother tough. What you taught me, I've needed. (But I never have been right since that dirt clod incident.) — Brent Weeks

It wouldn't be the first time his sharp tongue had cut his own throat. — Brent Weeks

We all make choises,and then we bear the consequences for those. — Brent Weeks

If reality is hard and flat and unjust, then it's better to adjust to what really is than to complain that it isn't what you wish. That was what made me lose faith ... But having lost it, soon I doubted my lack of faith. There were niggling hints of meaning everywhere. — Brent Weeks

There's a reason theory and practice are two different words. — Brent Weeks

Life is our battlefield. We must do what we know to do, not what we want to do. — Brent Weeks

After a while, with nothing to lose, I'll only able to win. — Brent Weeks

I've taken lives, and I've taken my own life in my hands and trusted a friend with it. Yes, sir, I'd say that makes me a man."
"Neither makes you a man. The first makes you a killer. The second makes you a fool. Either may get you killed. — Brent Weeks

Every community is a gull gliding over a sea of spite, eager for carrion, all too ready to steal, and all too quick to squawk when stolen from. — Brent Weeks

Love is a madness. Love is Failer - Durzo Blint — Brent Weeks

You're not really the Night Angel. You're only a shadow and shadows can't touch anything. — Brent Weeks

Truth doesn't depend on your belief in it. — Brent Weeks

At some point, you have to decide not merely what you're going to believe, but how you're going to believe. Are you going to believe in people, or in ideas or in Orcholam? With your heart, or with your head? Will you believe what's in front of you, or in what you think you know? There are some things you think you know that are lies. I can't tell you what those are, and I'm sorry for that. — Brent Weeks

We become the masks we wear. — Brent Weeks

It is better to suffer evil than to do evil. — Brent Weeks

Analogies are lies grown-ups tell." "Why? — Brent Weeks

Highest marks of the day. And don't ever do it again. — Brent Weeks

It had better be. It doesn't do much when it's soft. — Brent Weeks

There's a hope that empowers, and a hope that enfeebles. Don't confuse them. — Brent Weeks

I am simply competent ... Not a leader except when leadership is lacking. — Brent Weeks

Our home is gone, but come home, — Brent Weeks

If you are not free to say no, your yes is meaningless. — Brent Weeks

Come, the Devil's Highway awaits. — Brent Weeks

It wasn't love - it was commerce. — Brent Weeks

Idealists mature badly. If they can't outgrow their idealism, they become hypocrites or blind. — Brent Weeks

Growing old with the woman I love would be my first choice, but dying reconciled with her isn't a bad second. — Brent Weeks

Life is meaningless, when we take a life we take nothing of value. — Brent Weeks

People commonly misquote the old Sacrinomicon and say that money is the root of all evil, which is moronic if you think about it. The real quote is that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. Not as pithy, but a lot truer. — Brent Weeks

Perhaps great men are content with marrying a woman who is not their equal, but we great women ... Our equals are rare enough in the first place, and then most of those we do find have married twits. — Brent Weeks

There is no cheating in war; there are only survivors and victims. — Brent Weeks

The perfect killer has no friends. Only targets. — Brent Weeks

And on a difference of three minutes, all of history changes. — Brent Weeks

That they have learned to weep at war is no victory. That they know loss is no gain. — Brent Weeks

That's the burden of leadership, Logan: making the choice when none of the choices are good. — Brent Weeks

There was a nice dilemma.
How does one interject into a polite conversation,
"By the way, in case you're ever interested, I do have a penise."? — Brent Weeks

It was no true prayer to beg forgiveness while choosing to sin. — Brent Weeks

The perfect killer has no identity. — Brent Weeks

Don't play with your kills. Don't go for the one-thrust beautiful finish. Cut someone twenty times and let them collapse from blood loss - then finish them. Don't make it beautiful. You aren't making art, you're making corpses. — Brent Weeks