Janet Morris Quotes

70 Sourced Quotes

And Tempus thought then that nothing was more worthwhile than what was growing in this whitewashed barracks, where he has come to build a force such as men or gods have never seen - a force worth reckoning with, if you were of a mind. And something was of that mind. And something else opposed it. He should have expected that. Battle in the heavens, battle on the earth.

Janet Morris
It was his soul's freedom that was in question. And that question was whether freedom was worth the price when it meant shirking the responsibilities of honor.

Janet Morris
The meaning of life, Nikodemos, is to live life with meaning. The purpose of life is merely to live it, perhaps to give it.

Janet Morris
Only from chaos does order come. The angry Fates bring death where they will, when war is king, says Enlil, storm god of the armies, and the tip of his crown rends the clouds above their heads. "Wheresoever I rule, death comes shambling after. So it has always been, is, and will be."

Janet Morris
Ask yourselves if the gods are angry, you who have seen Harmony come among us, walk among us, touch us, look kindly upon us. We are the Sacred Band of Thebes. We fight in the forefront, therefore we bleed first. We live, therefore we die.

Janet Morris
If, as you teach, the universe has no beginning and no end, why should we?

Janet Morris
Gather the shards of your courage. Patch together what resolve you can. We'll find this thing - and kill it.

Janet Morris
One to a customer was the rule: one body; one mind; one swing through life. - Tempus

Janet Morris
This is for you. A mage named Randal told me to give it to the Band if you ever came back. 'It surmounts evil,' he told me, 'keeps doom at bay.'

Janet Morris
There is no mercy in trading life for life. And certainly no righteousness. Mercy, once given, cannot be taken back.

Janet Morris
Valor was in Nikodemos, unquestionable, and commitment like trees to stand or night to fall.

Janet Morris
Be polite to all, friendly to none. Be professional. Be ready to kill everyone and everything.

Janet Morris
Why is it we are always the targets of the angry Fates? Twice as many men of ours met harm as did theirs, since we've come here.

Janet Morris
Tempus would be protected, better shielded from whatever the Stepson thought threatening, if love could heal and save.

Janet Morris
Each soul has its appointed doom. How is it you dare to raise a mortal boy so high - high enough to flout the gods? Bring godhead where a man may reach out and take it? growls Enlil, and lightning splits a clear blue sky.

Janet Morris
And what do the Theban hoplites see in this extended rending of the sky, this white-bright glory of Enlil's lightning? The future, but not theirs: paired cavalry fighters; formed ranks of armored death; grim men on their tall horses with lightning limning weapons tailored to the task; men spoiling for a fight if the gods allowed - the Sacred Band of Stepsons, out from shadows and the dark.

Janet Morris
Revenge is never the best driver for a battle, but a common one.

Janet Morris
What we hold sacred is honor, justice, and glory. You need not swear allegiance to our storm god, to serve with us. Fighters are among us from many lands, with many gods and many beliefs. Believe as you will. What is between a man and his god is theirs alone to say.

Janet Morris
Loyalty must be forged - to him, to his: stronger than iron, from experience, from risk - it can't be bought, or taught, or promised before the fact. Allegiance must be earned so it will hold, win or lose.

Janet Morris
Always take responsibility for your past. It is your only collateral in life. Unless you despise yourself now, you cannot despise yourself then. Everything you did is a part of the process that brought you here. All your past is as alive and real as your so-called 'present.'

Janet Morris
Fight for life itself and everlasting freedom of the human spirit.

Janet Morris
If cities have souls, Sanctuary's was troubled long before Tempus got here, and will be troubled long after he and his are gone.

Janet Morris
Gods colliding, ethos and mythos trying to combine. The Sacred Band caught up in a whirlwind not of any god's devising: he and Niko had wanted to save twenty-three pairs of fated Theban fighters. Now everything feels fated and fighting oversweeps its boundaries of time and place and plane.

Janet Morris
We've the new hard-steel, though why they're all so hot to pay twice the price when men're soft as clay and even wood will pierce the boldest belly, I can't say.

Janet Morris
It is hard to battle anger, for whatever it wants it pays from the soul.

Janet Morris