If you look at any ancient civilization, they've all used fantasy stories to train the young.
David GemmellWhy now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone.
David GemmellThere 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.
David GemmellSome people have a gift for stupidity, an almost mystic ability to withstand any form of logic.
David GemmellYours is a race whose imagination is limited to its own small appetites. Greed, lust, envy - these are the motivating forces of humankind. What redeems you is that in every man and woman there is a seed that can grow to encompass love, joy and compassion. But this seed is never allowed to prosper in fertile ground. It struggles for life among the rocks of your human soul.
David GemmellThere is a darkness in you. In all of us, probably. Beasts we keep chained. Ordinary men have to keep the chains strong, for if we let the beast loose then society will turn upon us with fiery vengeance. Kings though...well, who is there to turn upon them? So the chains are made of straw. It is the curse of kings, Helikaon, that they can become monsters. And they invariably do.
David GemmellTrust your instincts, and make judgements on what your heart tells you. The heart will not betray you.
David GemmellTrue. The one certainty about riding, Braygan, is that - at some time - you will fall off. It is a fact. Another fact you might like to consider, in your life of perpetual terror, is that you will die. We are all going to die, some of us young, some of us old, some of us in our sleep, some of us screaming in agony. We cannot stop it, we can only delay it.
David GemmellHeroes are people who face down their fears. It is that simple. A child afraid of the dark who one day blows out the candle; a women terrified of the pain of childbirth who says, 'It is time to become a mother'. Heroism does not always live on the battlefield.
David GemmellAn enemy is like a man's most prized flower. It brings him joy to see it buried in the ground.
David GemmellEvery little bit of good I may do, let me do it now for I may not come this way again.
David Gemmell