David Gemmell Quotes

There are times, Sember, when I could believe your mother had a secret lover. Looking at you makes me wonder if it was one of my goats.

Most wars are fought for greed, but we are luckier here we fight for our lives and the lives of the people we love.

If you look at any ancient civilization, they've all used fantasy stories to train the young.

All men have talents. Some build, some paint, some write, some fight. For me it is different.

This world has few redeeming features, and one is the capacity for people to love one another with great, enduring passion.

By nature of definition only the coward is capable of the highest heroism

Most of the heroes we remember we remember only because they won. To win you must be ruthless. Single-minded ... which was why he had no friends just admirers.

Life is not so simple. There are many futures. The life of a single person is like a great tree: every branch, every twig, every leaf is a possible future.

Evil lives in a pit. If you want to fight it – you must climb down in the slime to do so.

When your life has been spent in one war after another for forty-five years, you have to be pretty handy to survive.

Liberty is only valued when it is threatened, therefore it is the threat that highlights the value. We should be grateful to the Nadir, since they heighten the value of our liberty.

I am not going to talk about patriotism, duty, liberty, and the defense of freedom because that's all dung to a soldier.

While men compete in war, there will be warriors. While there are warriors, there will be princes among warriors. Among the princes will be kings, and among the kings an emperor.

I would have offered you a forest of truth, but you wish to speak of a single leaf

The truth. Men will blind themselves with hot irons, rather than face it.

An enemy is like a man's most prized flower. It brings him joy to see it buried in the ground.

Life is a struggle, from the agonies of birth to the railing against death. Devour or be devoured. The law of the wild.

How many hopes and dreams are trapped within these bones? How many wonders lie never to be discovered? This is what war is. Desolation, despair and loss. There are no victors.

Our souls are but leaves in a storm, and only the gods know where we will come to rest.

This is the real magic of fantasy fiction: it can feed souls and change lives.

Hate is the father of all evil.

... Life can be savored only if you look to the future and leave vengeance to the gods

A problem shared is a problem doubled.

A man should not risk his life for beauty alone, Kiall, for that fades. You might as well risk it for a rose. Think on it.

I am a stranger. You do not need to lie to me or pretend. Only with friends do you need masks.

Each man has a breaking point, no matter how strong his spirit. Somewhere, deep inside him, there is a flaw that only the fickle cruelty of fate can find.

What is your name?" Why?" So I can mark your grave.

We like to think of life as a constant ... Yet it can be ended in a heartbeat.

The baresark loses all fear; his method is all-out attack, and invariably he takes his opponent with him even if he falls.

I think that for the coward every day carries a kind of death.

Life is sad enough, Magir. Laughter is a thing to be treasured.

But men don't come in just two groups, one of gold and the other of lead. They are a mix of both." "And what about women?" "Pure gold, my girl," Rayvan answered with a chuckle.

No one can take away the freedom of a man's soul.

Bow to nothing, son. I make mistakes as well as any man. If you think me wrong, be so good as to damn well say so.

Your men are brave men, And you have won. I can live with that, Earl of Bronze a poor man would I be if I could not.

One hundred only, Lord Earl. But judge us not by our number. Rather, watch the numbers of dead we leave behind.

The nature of a coward is to avoid death. If such a man courts peril there can be only two reasons. Either he is not a coward at all or there is no danger.

In any broth, the scum always rises to the top.

All legends have a base in fact.

A man cannot spend his life worrying about the unexpected.

The very odd thing about sagas ... is that they very rarely mention dry mouths and full bladders.

All things are possible, ... Except the passing of regret.

love is in the eyes, and one woman knows when another woman is in love.

You do not convince me. You rationalize your actions and because the result is favorable you become right.

All beauty is sad. [...] For it fades.

The point is [...] that you never know whether you've lost until you've lost. Anything can happen.

When healers yearn to kill then hope begins to die ... Evil cannot be overcome by evil.

Societies need heroes. So we travel to places where the revisionists cannot dismantle the great.

War. What was it about the prospect of some bloody enterprises that reduced men to the level of animals?

Death haunts everyone and never fails.