Brian Staveley Quotes & Sayings

among a soft folk obsessed with words, choosing the right word is nearly as important as doing the right thing." The — Brian Staveley

Obedience is a knife that cuts the cord of bondage.
Silence is a hammer that shatters the walls of speech.
Stillness is strength; pain a soft bed.
Put down your basin; emptiness is the only vessel. — Brian Staveley

the standard Kettral horseshit: the trainers insisted that their charges memorize everything about the empire from the price of wheat in Channary to the length of the Chief Priest's cock, but when it came to ongoing operations - then you couldn't buy a straight answer. — Brian Staveley

Easier to recall a loosed falcon than a spoken word. — Brian Staveley

Resist faith. Resist trust. Believe only in what you touch with your hands. The rest is error and air. — Brian Staveley

Justice, as it turned out, was a lot harder than war. War was largely a series of technical questions, a matter of taking living human bodies and making them dead. There were infinite variations in the tactics and the strategy, of course, nuances in weaponry and technique, but the basic premise was bedrock: you'd done it right if you were alive at the end of the day, and the other poor fool was not. — Brian Staveley

You had to admire her, and you had to do it fast, because she was about to get all kinds of killed. — Brian Staveley

we use the time we have. There is no other. — Brian Staveley

dozens of groups of seven to sit on the dozens of trials that would take place, each group composed, as decreed by Terial himself, of the Seven: a mother, a merchant, a pauper, a prelate, a soldier, a son, and a dying man. — Brian Staveley

Henderson Jakes, the founder of the Eyrie, had envisioned a cadre of elite soldiers dedicated to celibacy, the empire, and the art of war. He had to settle for two out of three. Young men and women willing to leap off massive birds into burning buildings at a mere nod from a commanding officer grew violently rebellious when required to abstain from sex. — Brian Staveley

If the people are foolish, he said, it is because their leader has failed them. — Brian Staveley

Blinding light. Perfect black. Ringing like a million mouths, screaming, singing. Body instantly and utterly gone. Gone the rain. Gone the mob. Gone her own mind and will. Gone everything but a single voice, — Brian Staveley

The man still fighting last week's battle will always lose to the man already fighting tomorrow's, — Brian Staveley

When you know nothing about a creature," the monk ground out, his voice as hard as a rock slide, "expect it has come to kill you. — Brian Staveley

Assume nothing,'" he said. The first chapter of the Tactics. "If we figure everyone might be a murderer, we're less likely to be disappointed. — Brian Staveley

The process is the goal," Kaden responded innocently, trying not to feel smug. It was about time one of those Shin maxims worked in his favor. — Brian Staveley

You can explain a lot of things to a man. His own death is not one of them. — Brian Staveley

Gardening?" Kaden asked. "Why?"
The assassin looked amused. "We need to eat. The hot blood of the slaughtered is delicious, obviously, but sometimes the body craves vegetables. — Brian Staveley

Pain is suffering because we want to be free of it, and pleasure is suffering because we fear to lose it. Fools search for freedom, but there is no freedom. There is only the embrace. — Brian Staveley

You squint hard enough, and everything starts to look suspicious. — Brian Staveley

People kill to get power, they kill to keep power, and they kill if they think they might lose it, which is pretty much always. Even if you and I both stay out of it, even if we both die, whoever came after us will keep coming. They'll find the next threat, the next worrisome voice, the next person with the wrong name or the wrong skin. Maybe they'll go after the rich for their coin or the peasants for their rice, the Bascans because they're too dark or the Breatans because they're too pale - it doesn't matter. — Brian Staveley

The fighters who frighten you are not the fighters to fear. The man you barely notice will be the one to bury a blade in your back. — Brian Staveley

Like waves, men and women exist only in motion, in change. Put them on the page, and you have already failed. And — Brian Staveley

Believe what you see with your eyes; trust what you hear with your ears; know what you feel with your flesh. The rest is dream and delusion. — Brian Staveley

Any fool can see what's there. You need to see what is not there. — Brian Staveley

It was strange the way that people venerated truth. Everyone seemed to strive for it, as though it were some unalloyed good, a perfect gem of glittering rectitude. Women and men might disagree about its definition, but priests and prostitutes, mothers and monks all mouthed the word with respect, even reverence. No one seemed to realize how stooped the truth could be, how twisted and how ugly. — Brian Staveley

Our lives were short, no more than a blink to the foes we fought, but we were fertile. Fathers fought our battles, but it was our mothers who won the war. — Brian Staveley

It was just as all the Kettral said: You went to Hook to escape your problems and came back with a dozen more. — Brian Staveley

Emptiness exists only when something else has been gouged away. — Brian Staveley

The mind is a flame. Blow it out, or it will blind you. — Brian Staveley

Leadership isn't just about giving orders. A fool can give orders. A leader listens. He changes his mind. He acknowledges mistakes. — Brian Staveley

There's no shame, the Kettral said, in crying in your own rack. The rest of the equation remained unspoken, axiomatic: you could cry all you wanted in your rack, provided you got up again in a day or two, provided that when you got up, you went back out, and that when you went back out, you were the baddest, fastest, most brutal motherfucker — Brian Staveley

I'd leave you here longer, but it's no longer safe. — Brian Staveley

The more you try to see, the less you will notice. — Brian Staveley

What I observe is that the world is ruled by men - good men and bad, desperate men and those with principles. — Brian Staveley

Sometimes, when the monsters come, you need a dark, monstrous thing to pit against them. — Brian Staveley

Only a fool believes a thing of value will be laid in her lap with no reckoning. — Brian Staveley

We all have our hobbies," Kaden replied. He could have been discussing farming techniques. — Brian Staveley

The ablest swordsman, Hendran wrote, the consummate tactician, the peerless general: All seem invulnerable until luck turns against them. Make no mistake - place a man in death's way enough times, and his luck will turn. — Brian Staveley

Men tend to die when you slide steel beneath their skin and wiggle it around. Even priests. — Brian Staveley

Triste lay in a heap, her dress hitched up around her thighs, whimpering and shuddering until Gwenna shifted to kick her ungently in the head. — Brian Staveley

Oh for 'Shael's sweet sake, girl, you think you can rule an empire without lying? You think your father didn't lie? Or his father? Or any of your goldy-eyed great-great-founders of Annur? It's built into the job. Bakers have flour, fishermen have nets, and leaders have lies. — Brian Staveley

If you hope to play a part in this empire, Sanlitun had told her time and time again, you must learn to divorce your feelings from your face. The world sees what you allow it to see, judges you according to what you reveal. — Brian Staveley

It is a meager freedom that leaves no scars — Brian Staveley

There's no blade as keen as surprise. — Brian Staveley

I'm doubly sorry for your loss," the old monk began after a time. "First, because every son should have a chance to know his father, not as a child knows his protector, but as a man knows another man. — Brian Staveley

So," he began slowly. "I see — Brian Staveley