Brian Staveley Quotes & Sayings

#1. If the people are foolish, he said, it is because their leader has failed them.

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

Brian Staveley

#3. 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

#4. 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

#5. 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

#6. You can explain a lot of things to a man. His own death is not one of them.

Brian Staveley

#7. We all have our hobbies," Kaden replied. He could have been discussing farming techniques.

Brian Staveley

#8. So," he began slowly. "I see

Brian Staveley

#9. 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

#10. It is a meager freedom that leaves no scars

Brian Staveley

#11. Men tend to die when you slide steel beneath their skin and wiggle it around. Even priests.

Brian Staveley

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

Brian Staveley

#13. 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

#14. Emptiness exists only when something else has been gouged away.

Brian Staveley

#15. 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

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

Brian Staveley

#17. 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

#18. 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

#19. 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

#20. You squint hard enough, and everything starts to look suspicious.

Brian Staveley

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

Brian Staveley

#22. There's no blade as keen as surprise.

Brian Staveley

#23. 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

#24. Only a fool believes a thing of value will be laid in her lap with no reckoning.

Brian Staveley

#25. 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

#26. 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

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

Brian Staveley

#28. 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

#29. The man still fighting last week's battle will always lose to the man already fighting tomorrow's,

Brian Staveley

#30. 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

#31. 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

#32. Sometimes, when the monsters come, you need a dark, monstrous thing to pit against them.

Brian Staveley

#33. we use the time we have. There is no other.

Brian Staveley

#34. 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

#35. 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