158 Quotes by Richard K. Morgan

We're all small and harmless once, Archidi. But we all grow up. And some of us grow up needing killing.

In the Envoy Corps, you take what is offered, Virginia Vidaura said, somewhere in the corridors of my memory. And that must sometimes be enough.

There should have been a better farewell. But in the end, there never is. And we take what meagre scraps we can find.

Potential, and the will to deploy it. That's all magic is in the end, you know.

You know, the aspirants believe this is the only true existence. That everything outside is an illusion, a shadow play created by the ancestor gods to cradle us until we can build our own tailored reality and Upload into it. That’s comforting, isn’t it.

The strain on her face was still there, like weathered rocks under a thin mantle of snow.

...the tongues of men are not much leashed by concerns for accuracy or truth.

A weapon is a tool," she repeated, a little breathlessly. "A tool for killing and destroying. And there will be times when, as an Envoy, you must kill and destroy. Then you will choose and equip yourself with the tools that you need. But remember the weakness of weapons. They are an extension--you are the killer and destroyer. You are whole, with or without them.

It was the single forgiving phrase in the syntax of weaponry I had strapped about me. The rest were unequivocal sentences of death.