Pierce Brown

These Peerless thump their chests in salute to me. The monsters. They go with the wind, chasing power. But they don't realize power doesn't shift. Power is resolute. It is the mountain, not the wind. To shift so easily is to lose trust. And trust is what has kept me alive. Trust in my friends, and their trust in me.

"It's hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant," I say. "You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint." I gesture to the simple house. "But you're not more civilized," I say. You're just more disciplined."

"Isn't that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulses for stability?"

If pain is the weight of being, love is the purpose.

I once thought the greatest sin of war was violence. It isn't. The greatest sin is it requires good men to become practical.

Nothing beautiful survives the mob.

"What do you live for?" I ask her suddenly. "Is it for me?Is it for family and love? Or is it for some dream?"

"It's not just some dream, Darrow. I live for the dream that my children will be born free. That they will be what they like.That they will own land their father gave them."

"I live for you," I say sadly.

She kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."

"Death isn't empty like you say it is. Emptiness is life without freedom, Darrow. Emptiness is living chained by fear, fear of loss, fear of death.I say we break those chains.Break the chains of fear and you break the chains that bind us to the Golds, to the Society. Could you imagine it?"

Humans are always negotiating. That's what conversation is. Someone has something, knows something. Someone wants something.