Top 150 David Gemmell Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 3 of 4

101. “It is easier with strangers, for they touch your life but for an instant. You will not disappoint them, for you owe them nothing; neither do they expect anything. Friends you can hurt, for they expect everything.”

— David Gemmell

102. “No one can take away the freedom of a man’s soul.”

— David Gemmell

103. “No one ever gets out of this life alive.”

— David Gemmell

104. “Our souls are but leaves in a storm, and only the gods know where we will come to rest.”

— David Gemmell

105. “Yes, it would have been good, he thought, to spend quiet years with his family, waiting for his diseased heart to fail as he sat in his chair staring at the mountains. But this was better. This was life! Not the killing and the terrified screams of dying men suddenly facing the awesome spectre of their own mortality. No, but to face his fears as a man, to stand at the brink of the abyss and refuse to be cowed or beaten down.”

— David Gemmell

106. “All men have talents. Some build, some paint, some write, some fight. For me it is different.”

— David Gemmell

107. “To be truthful i am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists i have not found it.”

— David Gemmell

108. “Heroes are people who face down their fears. It is that simple.”

— David Gemmell

109. “None of us can choose the manner of our passing.”

— David Gemmell

110. “The world was changing, and he was running out of places to hide.”

— David Gemmell

111. “Liberty is only valued when it is threatened, therefore it is the threat that highlights the value. We should be grateful to the Nadir, since they heighten the value of our liberty.”

— David Gemmell

112. “The truth. Men will blind themselves with hot irons, rather than face it.”

— David Gemmell

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

— David Gemmell

114. “It is the nature of men to build walls around themselves. They think it will protect them from hurt. It does the opposite. The hurt still gets in, but now it rattles around the walls, unable to get out. So you build more walls. You are now seeing the world without walls. You are free, Ro. Free to hurt and free to heal.”

— David Gemmell

115. “The nature of a coward is to avoid death. If such a man courts peril there can be only two reasons. Either he is not a coward at all or there is no danger.”

— David Gemmell

116. “Man is capable of greatness, love, nobility, compassion. Yet never forget that his capacity for evil is infinite. It is a sad truth, boy, that if you sit now and think of the worst tortures that could ever be inflicted on another human being, they will already have been practiced somewhere. If there is one sound that follows the march of humanity, it is the scream.”

— David Gemmell

117. “Risks? I have lived with the prospect of assassination for years. What risks? All men die, rich and poor alike. But if I am to die, then let it be while I fight, not like some bullock in a pen waiting for the ax to fall.”

— David Gemmell

118. “Life is sad enough, Magir. Laughter is a thing to be treasured.”

— David Gemmell

119. “Who do you think you are?′ Asiron asked, with a dry humourless laugh. ‘I’ll tell you who I am,’ answered Parmenion, the words of Tamis echoing in his mind. ‘I am Parmenion, the Death of Nations.”

— David Gemmell

120. “What is life if a man cannot count on his friends when he has gone mad?”

— David Gemmell

121. “It is not hard to change when your biggest problem is whether the weeds prosper in a vegetable patch.”

— David Gemmell

122. “How many hopes and dreams are trapped within these bones? How many wonders lie never to be discovered? This is what war is. Desolation, despair and loss. There are no victors.”

— David Gemmell

123. “A man cannot spend his life worrying about the unexpected.”

— David Gemmell

124. “Beware the wooden horse, Agamemnon King, Conqueror, for it will roar to the skies on wings of thunder and herald the death of nations.”

— David Gemmell

125. “Love was what mattered. Love of one for one. The touching of hands, the touching of hearts. The warmth of belonging, the joy of sharing. There would always be tyrants. Man seemed incapable of existing without them. For without tyrants there would be no heroes. And man could not live without heroes. Renya.”

— David Gemmell

126. “Love requires a different kind of courage, Andromache.”

— David Gemmell

127. “I know the difference between heroes and cowards. You are a hero. You believe me?’ ‘I don’t feel like a hero,’ Xander admitted. Odysseus tapped the cheekbone under his right eye. ‘This eye is magical, Xander. It is never wrong. Now, I ask again, do you believe me?’ ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ ‘Then tell me what you are.’ ‘I am a hero.’ ‘Good. When doubt comes, as it always does, remember those words. Say them to yourself. And I will see you again in the spring, if the gods will it.”

— David Gemmell

128. “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.”

— David Gemmell

129. “Your face may be gone, but you know who you are.”

— David Gemmell

130. “Nothing would ever have been achieved, he thought, if men had allowed themselves to be diverted by the scale of the problems faced.”

— David Gemmell

131. “An enemy is like a man’s most prized flower. It brings him joy to see it buried in the ground.”

— David Gemmell

132. “Life is nothing unless death has been faced down.”

— David Gemmell

133. “I feel that way about heaven; it’s far more important that Heaven should exist than that I should ever see it.”

— David Gemmell

134. “Bow to nothing, son. I make mistakes as well as any man. If you think me wrong, be so good as to damn well say so.”

— David Gemmell

135. “I am not going to talk about patriotism, duty, liberty, and the defense of freedom because that’s all dung to a soldier.”

— David Gemmell

136. “There 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 Gemmell

137. “War. What was it about the prospect of some bloody enterprises that reduced men to the level of animals?”

— David Gemmell

138. “The truth is that every invention leads men to say: can I use it to kill, to main, to terrify?”

— David Gemmell

139. “This is the real magic of fantasy fiction: it can feed souls and change lives.”

— David Gemmell

140. “One hundred only, Lord Earl. But judge us not by our number. Rather, watch the numbers of dead we leave behind.”

— David Gemmell

141. “The night has a capacity for terror that the day can never match.”

— David Gemmell

142. “It is said a man doesn’t get old while his mother lives. I think it’s true. You are always a child in her eyes. It is irritating in the extreme. But you know, when they have gone, you’d give the earth just to hear them treating you like a child once more.”

— David Gemmell

143. “I think that for the coward every day carries a kind of death.”

— David Gemmell

144. “This was the only place in all the world for the last of the old heroes: Druss the Legend, standing with the last hopes of the Drenai on the battlements of the greatest fortress ever built, waiting for the largest army in the world. Where else would he be?”

— David Gemmell

145. “The battle between good and evil is circular. Good wins, evil wins, good again.”

— David Gemmell

146. “Someone, who when the whole world turns against you, is still standing by your side.”

— David Gemmell

147. “The truth? What the Hell is the truth? We’re born, we live and we die. Everything else is just shades of opinion.”

— David Gemmell

148. “It will not go out,’ said Keeva, putting her hand on Ustarte’s shoulder. ‘He is a hero. My uncle told me that heroes have special souls that are blessed by the Source. He was a wise man, my uncle.”

— David Gemmell

149. “It is baffling to me why so many people find it difficult to say, “I was wrong.” The words, when spoken with repentance, always turn away wrath. But those who cling to their absolute lightness, despite any evidence to the contrary, will always arouse anger in their comrades or superiors.”

— David Gemmell

150. “Do not think of tomorrow. Enjoy the now, for it is all any of us ever have.”

— David Gemmell