“This is where the wise man turns away. This is where the holy kneel and call on God. These are the last miles, my brothers. Don't look to me to save you. Don't think I will not spend you. Run if you have the wit. Pray if you have the soul. Stand your ground if courage is yours. But don't follow me.Follow me, and I will break your heart.”

“...an early missionary in New Zealand heard a Maori warrior taunting the preserved head of an enemy chief in the following fashion: You wanted to run away, did you? but my meri (war club] overtook you: and after you were cooked, you made food for my mouth. And where is your father? he is cooked: and where is your brother? he is eaten:-and where is your wife? there she sits, a wife for me:-and where are your children? there they are, with loads on their backs, carrying food, as my slaves.' In Maori warfare, decapitation marked the beginning, not the end, of a vanquished warrior's humiliation.”

“There is something brittle in me that will break before it bends. Perhaps if the [the enemy] had brought a smaller army I might have had the sense to run. But he overdid it.”

“Three months previously I had entered the Haunt alone, covered in blood that was not my own and swinging a stolen sword. By Brothers followed me in. Now I left the castle in the hands of another. I had wanted my uncle's blood. His crown I took because other men said I could not have it.”

“Weakness is a contagion, one breath of it can corrupt a man whole and entire. Now though, even with all the evil in me, I don't know if I could teach such lessons to a son of mine.”

“There's a purity to the struggle to reach a peak. You leave your world behind and take only what you need. For a creature like me there is nothing closer to redemption.”

“Is this going to be one of those times when you pretend not to have a plan until the last moment? And then turn out to really not have one?- Sir Makin to King Jorg”