A warrior fears the battle he missed. More than any fight he can make his own, he fears the fight that’s gone, that ended without him, that no feat of arms can change.

— Mark Lawrence

Battles are all about strategy, and strategy pivots on priorities. Since my priorities were Prince Japan, Prince Japan, and Prince Japan, with “looking good” a distant fourth, I took the opportunity to resume running away. I find that the main thing about success is the ability to act at the moment. A hero attacks at the moment; a good coward runs in it. The rest of the world waits for the next moment and ends up as crow food.

— Mark Lawrence

Better a long ignoble life of shallow pleasures than a short stab at heroism, ending with a short stab. And just because one man plays another doesn’t always mean that it’s not the right direction for both of them.

— Mark Lawrence

Brother Row you could trust to make a long shot with a short bow. You could trust him to come out of a knife fight with somebody else's blood on his shirt. You could trust him to lie, to cheat, to steal, and to watch your back. Furthermore, you couldn't trust his eyes though. He had kind eyes, and you couldn't trust them.

— Mark Lawrence

Cold has its own taste. It tastes of a bitten tongue. It coils around you, a living thing, a beast that means to kill you, not with wrath, not with tooth nor claw, but with the mercy of surrender, with the kindness of letting you go gentle into the long night after such a burden of pain and misery.

— Mark Lawrence

Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it.

— Mark Lawrence

Dark times call for dark choices. Choose me.

— Mark Lawrence

Death was kind.” He drew a sharp breath. “But no father should have to give such a kindness to his child.

— Mark Lawrence

Every star, turning in the black depth of heaven, burns for no better reason than that humanity raised its face to look. Every great deed needs to be witnessed. Go out there and do something great.

— Mark Lawrence

For the longest time I studied revenge to the exclusion of all else. I built my first torture chamber in the dark vaults of imagination. Lying on bloody sheets in the Healing Hall I discovered doors within my mind that I’d not found before, doors that even a child of nine knows should not be opened. Doors that never close again. I threw them wide.

— Mark Lawrence