Carve The Mark Quotes
"Hushflowers always bloomed when the night was longest."
"The burnstones scraped together and lit up bright red as blood."
"Off-worlders who thought their planet was blank with snow had never actually set foot on it."
"Frozen air stung his eyes when he opened the door."
"The current flowed through every living thing, and showed itself in the sky in all different colors."
"He always said that when they went to the temple. Sort of like cheering for a boring lecture or a long line on voting day."
"Fear is the most powerful form of persuasion."
"Sometimes we don’t get to know them, but we have to trust her, even when it’s difficult."
"Not everything that is effective must be done in public."
"Nothing worthwhile should ever be wasted. Surely we can agree on that."
"I didn’t know the fates of the Kereseth boys, or any but mine and Ryzek’s, though they had been broadcast a few days ago on the Assembly news feed."
"The pain was still there, aching and burning wherever the currentshadows traveled, but it was easier to ignore."
"All people are violent. Some resist the impulse, and some don’t. Better to acknowledge it, to use it as a point of access to the rest of your being, than to lie to yourself about it."
""Honor," I said with a snort. "Honor has no place in survival.""
""You won’t have any currentshadows. You’ll be with me." He cocked his head to the side. "Or are you really that uncomfortable with touching me?""
"It was a rhythm I knew well, and even loved, though my parents were no longer here to guide me through it."
""Growing up here," I clarified, "has made me see the truth about people.""
"The last time I had been close to a crowd like that had been before my first sojourn, when my father hoisted me in the air."
""Let’s not delay this," Ryzek said, and he beckoned Akos forward. They both drew closer to me, Akos’s right arm pulled close to his body, like he was trying to stay as far away from my brother as possible without disobeying him."
""They will think he is a servant," Ryzek said. "Because that is what he is.""
"No," he said. "They’re staring because you’ve got bright blue paint all over your face."
"Yeah." My palm was sweaty where it pressed against his. "Extraplanetary vendors are allowed to sell in Voa during the Sojourn Festival."
"You love them," he said. "All these places, all these things."
"There’s nothing you can do for these people?"
"High-status Shotet are my brother’s insulation against an uprising," I said.
"Ah, Little Noavek," he said. "I didn’t think I would see you again."
"It’s supposed to simulate the sound of water for homesick travelers," I said.
"What about Thuvhe?" he said. "Do you love it, too?"
"Iceflowers and buildings made of leaded glass."
"You will never disrespect me with silly escape plans again," Ryzek said.
"I meant to involve you. But I didn’t expect to feel bad about it."
"It doesn’t have to be a good one, or a noble one. It just has to be a reason."
"There’s no version of Eijeh that I don’t want to rescue from him."
"Freedom. He offered it like someone who didn’t know what it meant."
"Sometimes, though, he felt Cyra’s pain like it was his own."
"The condition of sourness—or monstrousness, as you might call it—doesn’t have to be permanent."
"That’s never 'all,' he thought, but he didn’t press."
"She didn’t say it like she wanted him to comfort her, or debate her."
"Soft hearts make the universe worth living in."
"It’s a shame she didn’t feel the need to do that with me."
"If I was going to eat the flesh of my enemies, I would roast it, not boil it."
"You were wearing Shotet armor when you were dropped off. The chancellor’s instructions are for you to be treated with caution."
"It’s just that I wanted to warn you. The chancellor wants to know for sure you aren’t . . . well. A traitor, I suppose."
"I stayed alive, and now this is what I am. Nothing I say to you is going to change what you’ve already assumed."
"His knees met the floor in the underground prison. Cyra’s currentgift crept over him like sharpworms around the roots of iceflowers."
"My gift comes from me. It’s an expression of my personality. So I guess I don’t see a difference."
"You don’t really ever know if it’s you they want to be around, or your gift."
"The world did not become something just because you needed it to."
"You want to see people as extremes. Bad or good, trustworthy or not. But that isn’t how people work."
"When I kill people with a touch, it’s because I decide to give them all the pain and keep none of it for myself."
"You saw me as someone better than I was. You told me I could choose to be different."
"I am going to rip my brother to pieces either way."
"The current had not given me a curse. I had become strong under its teaching."
"Maybe no one else but me could bear it all myself."
"Your friendship has quite literally altered me."
"Someone so close that to lose them would be like losing a limb."
"You are what you need to be. Regardless, I love the person you were, the one you are, the one you will become."
"I need to bear it all myself. I can’t give up on him."
"I can’t watch you destroy yourself to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved."
"I’m the reason Eijeh is the way he is. If I hadn’t tried to escape... if I had just surrendered to my fate earlier..."
"Ryzek feared pain, so the current had given me a gift he would fear."
"I have always known what you would become, someone who would always be stared at."
"If you think I'm tough on you, you don't know how bad it can get."
"Look, and get smaller. Be ready, and act ready."
"Poor me, I'm Christina, I have to actually teach people things."
"This isn't some kind of... experiment, is it?"
"She speaks in strange voices, mimicking me, or her coworkers, or the birds we watch videos of in my apartment."
"We work, and dream. We fight, and we laugh, and we fall in love. We move. And we mend."