David Gemmell Quotes

For the lion to to prosper the deer must die. All the world is combat.

He didn't want to come, Dweller. He didn't want to get involved. It should have been me who died.' 'Of course he wanted to come. Why else was he here? You didn't force him, Draig. He came because you were his brother and he loved you. He could have left at any time once the pursuit began. He made his own choices. Just as you did. Just as I knew you would.

Too many people go through life without pausing to enjoy what they have.

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

A fighting force is like a sword-blade. You can't test it until it has passed through fire.

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.

I'm not laughing at you. [...] I'm laughing at the whole stupid business. We face the biggest threat in our history and they give me a helmet too big,and you a helmet too small, and tell us we can't exchange them. It's too much. Really.

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

We are closest to life when we are vying with death ... The blood runs hot, the air smells sweet, the sky becomes an unbearably beautiful blue. Battle is intoxicating. That is why the ghastly vileness of war has always been so popular.

Rubbish! ... No man fights for dirt and grass. No, nor mountains. Those mountains were here before the fall and they will be here when the world topples again.

This enterprise was doomed, but we do what we can and do what we must. So a young farmer with wife and children decides to go home. Good! He shows a sense that you and I will never understand. They will sing songs about us, but he will ensure that there are people to sing them. He plants. We destroy.

None of us can choose the manner of our passing.

The onset of fear makes the simplest actions complex and difficult.

A methodical people," pulsed the voice of Kesa Khan. "They call themselves civilized because they can build tall castles and pitch their tents with geometric precision, but from here you can see the reality. Ants build in the same way. Are they civilized?

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