Pierce Brown Quotes

“You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do.”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising

“Wise men read books about history. Strong men write them.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“It's not victory that makes a man. It's his defeats.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“My chair rolls to a stop. his voice cut short, followed by a thump and sliding sound. My wheelchair rolls forward again. I look back and see Ragnar pushing it innocently along. Sevro isn't in the hallway behind us. I frown, wondering where he went, till he bursts out of a side passage.
"You! Troll!" Sevro shouts. "I'm a terrorist warlord! Stop throwing me. You made me drop my candy!" Sevro looks at the floor of the hallway. "Wait. Where is it? Dammit, Ragnar. Where is my peanut bar? You know how many people I had to kill to get that? Six! Six!"
Ragnar chews quietly above me, and though I'm probably mistaken, I think I see him smile.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“... You have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it.”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising

“The Gray soldiers prowl the cities ensuring order, ensuring obedience to the hierarchy. The Whites arbitrate their justice and push their philosophy. Pinks pleasure and serve in highColor homes. Silvers count and manipulate currency and logistics. Yellows study the medicines and sciences. Greens develop technology. Blues navigate the stars. Coppers run the beauracracy. Every Color has a purpose. Every Color props up the Golds.”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising

“I fear you think your strength lies in your darkness. But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“We all want to be special. It must ache to discover you are not.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“Hope is an opiate, not a plan.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“Matter, how tiny my share.
Time, how brief my allotment.
Fate, how small my roll to play.
Self, All that can be mastered.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“The tragedy of the gifted is the belief they are entitled to greatness. As a human, you are entitled only to death.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“This is war. Chaos. Chance. Death.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“If you are thrown into the deep and do not swim, you will drown... so keep swimming, right?”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising

“I suppose that is what every man must tell himself in war... That there will be an end, and when it is done, enough of himself will remain. Enough to be a father. A brother. A lover. But we know it isn't true. Don't we Darrow? War eats the victors last.”
― Pierce Brown, Iron Gold

“You don't get the wolf by the tongue without reaching through it's teeth.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“A man may run, but none has escaped his fate. Yet.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“War is chaos. It always has been. But technology makes it worse. It changes the fear. At the Institute, I feared men. I feared what Titus and the Jackal could do to me. You see death coming there and can at least struggle against it. Here you don't have such luxury. Modern war is fearing the air, the shadows, fearing the silence. Death will come and I won't even see it.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Life's a mountain, Volga. Nasty, steep, covered in ice. Try to move it, you'll go nowhere. Try to help someone else, you'll fall right down with them. Focus on your own feet, and you just might make it up and over.”
― Pierce Brown, Iron Gold

“No protection for the small-business owner. Only taxes and extortion.”
― Pierce Brown, Iron Gold

“How do you prepare for a kick in the balls? You don't. You suck it up.”
― Pierce Brown, Iron Gold

“Fear those who seek your company for their own vanity. As soon as you eclipse them in the mirror, it won't be the mirror they break.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“I've spend enough time in the past, love. The dead need no tears. They don't rest easier for our vengeance, or our guilt. They'd want us to live. And life's about the now and the future, eh?”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“Once upon a time, everything baked in an oven that was not bread was 'pie'.”
― Janet Clarkson, Pie: A Global History

“After a few millennia of inspiration, the primitive clay oven gave rise to the gleaming modern steel version. A high-tech oven alone does not, however, turn a bake-mete into a pie as we know it. One more important development was necessary. Pastry had to be invented.”
― Janet Clarkson, Pie: A Global History

“Dough becomes pastry when fat is added.”
― Janet Clarkson, Pie: A Global History

“I confess, I hope she does not hurry. It is good to be alone in the snow.”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“It was then that I realized sensibility is torpor by a more palatable name”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“The more blessed the creature, the less they question life”
― Pierce Brown, Dark Age

“The first day I served a Gold was the greatest pleasure I felt in all my life. I can't explain it to you. It was like meeting God. Now I know that it wasn't pleasure I felt. It was the absence of pain.
That is how they train Pinks to live a life of slavery, Darrow. They raise us in the Gardens with implants in our bodies that fill our lives with pain. They call the device Cupid's kiss- the burn along the spine, the ache in the head. It never stops. Not even when you close your eyes. Not when you cry. It only stops when you obey. They take the Kiss away eventually. When we're twelve. But...you can't know what it's like, the fear that it'll come back, Darrow.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Tactics win battles. Strategy wins wars.”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising