Top 500 Pierce Brown Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “I hope his pain fades in death. I did not love him till he was dead; and he should be dead, but he is still my brother. So I pray he finds peace in the vale and that I will see him again one day and we’ll embrace as brothers as he forgives me for what I did to him, because I did it for a dream, for our people.”

— Pierce Brown

252. “He tells us how the Persians were felled, how the Romans collapsed because their rulers forgot how their parents gained them an empire. He prattles about Muslim dynasties and European effeminacy and Chinese regionalism and American self-loathing and self-neutering. All the ancient names.”

— Pierce Brown

253. “Love may give one wings, but everything burns when it flies too close to the sun.”

— Pierce Brown

254. “On distant Luna, buildings rise seven miles high; there the Sovereign Consul, Octavia au Lune, rules with her Imperators and Praetors. The Ash Lord, who made the world of Rhea cinders, is her minion. She controls the twelve Olympic Knights, legions of Peerless Scarred, and Obsidians as innumerable as the stars.”

— Pierce Brown

255. “They want a leader, and if the Reaper of Mars decides to come back from the dead here... you won’t have an army, you’ll have a tide at your heels.”

— Pierce Brown

256. “I can’t hate him any more than I can hate myself. Maybe that isn’t forgiveness, but it’s all I have to give.”

— Pierce Brown

257. “Mother bid me to tell you: a pauper can never be a prince. Every time you look in the mirror, remember what we did to you. Remember you breathe because we let you. Remember your heart will one day be on our table. Rise so high, in mud you lie.”

— Pierce Brown

258. “No animal but man throws themselves willingly into the flames, Copper. Relish the sight. You’ll not see it again.”

— Pierce Brown

259. “Yet how many times have I already been pieced back together? How much longer can all these stitches hold? In the end, will there even be pieces left of me?”

— Pierce Brown

260. “It’s rage and fear leaving our bodies. Though space drags us across the floor to its embrace. Though death might come for us. I am home in this weird screaming mass of humanity. And as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”

— Pierce Brown

261. “Seeing the end coming doesn’t mean you can dodge it, fix it, stop it. We.”

— Pierce Brown

262. “Were you two in touch these last weeks? You’re acting like you share a secret language all of a sudden.” “Isn’t that always the case with those who’ve read the same books?” Aurae says with a little mischief.”

— Pierce Brown

263. “So this kid is what? A predestined Alexander? A Caesar? A Genghis? A Wiggin?” I ask. “This is slagging nonsense.”

— Pierce Brown

264. “A moving mind is always fed. At rest, mine eats itself.”

— Pierce Brown

265. “All ears yearn for a voice to lead them through darkness.”

— Pierce Brown

266. “There’s nothing worse for a soldier to imagine – that there will be no home to return to once the violence is over, no way to become the men we want to be. Instead, we’re trapped in these violent guises, guises we only ever had the courage to don because of how much we love our home. Is this all we’ll ever be?”

— Pierce Brown

267. “A friend may reach through the bars and hold our hand, but they cannot open the door for us. Only the prisoner has the key. All I can do is remind him we’re waiting for him when he gets out.”

— Pierce Brown

268. “Perhaps one day I’ll have two hearts to give.”

— Pierce Brown

269. “If you punch me back, you will be sent home, Pixie.” I kick him in the shin.”

— Pierce Brown

270. “He is still a freeloader and would rather amputate his own testicles than pay for a drink.”

— Pierce Brown

271. “He extends his left hand. His dislocated fingers look like lightning bolts. I pull them straight. He laughs with the pain, not knowing his brother’s blood is under my fingernails. I’m trying not to hyperventilate.”

— Pierce Brown

272. “Per aspera ad astra.” “Through the thorns to the stars.” Sevro snickers. “You fancy little fart. Omnis vir lupus.” Everyone a wolf.”

— Pierce Brown

273. “The more blessed the creature, the less they question life. She is like Valdir and his big muscles this way. Blindly forward with purpose. Guided by the trough of expectation.”

— Pierce Brown

274. “Vengeance then,” he sighs. “You said you could give it to me.” “I said I would give you justice. Vengeance is an empty thing, Darrow.”

— Pierce Brown

275. “What is this like for her? For a mother to see her child broken by other men? To see the pain written in scars on his skin, spoken in silences, in far-off looks. How many mothers have prayed to see their sons, their daughters return from war only to realize the war has kept them, the world has poisoned them, and they’ll never be the same? For.”

— Pierce Brown

276. “Hang a man for no real reason and you might get some grumblings from the townships. But force sobriety upon us, and you’ll be picking up the pieces for a bloodydamn month.”

— Pierce Brown

277. “The die is cast.”

— Pierce Brown

278. “We are not Red, not Blue or Gold or Gray or Obsidian. We are humanity. We are the tide. And today we reclaim the lives that have been stolen from us. We build the future we were promised.”

— Pierce Brown

279. “But even as I yearn for it, I fear it. Because the more I see of this cruel world, the less I believe it ends in some pleasant fiction.”

— Pierce Brown

280. “Anything gentle that lives long, hides its stinger well.”

— Pierce Brown

281. “A new wound can take a body. Opening an old one can claim a soul.”

— Pierce Brown

282. “But I am no Gold. I am a Red.”

— Pierce Brown

283. “He has to play my game!” Sevro says. “Shithead isn’t getting out till he plays nice. I’ll give him a riddle instead. What do I have in my pocket?”

— Pierce Brown

284. “You’re of use because you’re more than a weapon. When your wife died, she didn’t just give you a vendetta. She gave you her dream. You’re its keeper. Its maker. So don’t be spitting anger and hate. You’re not fighting against them, no matter what Harmony says. You’re fighting for Eo’s dream, for your family that is still alive, your people.”

— Pierce Brown

285. “Everything grand is made from a series of ugly little moments. Everything worthwhile by hours of self-doubt and days of drudgery. All the works by people you and I admire sit atop a foundation of failures. So whatever your project, whatever your struggle, whatever your dream, keep toiling, because the world needs your skyscraper.”

— Pierce Brown

286. “I failed the test. He’s right. It wasn’t justice. Justice is dispassionate; it is fair. I am the leader. I passed the sentence. I should have done it. Instead, I gave license to vengeance and vendetta. The cancer will not be cut away; I made it worse.”

— Pierce Brown

287. “I speak the midLingo. It’s more comfortable than that highLingo fartdust Priam jabbers on in.”

— Pierce Brown

288. “I admire one to my left, the bronze sun is behind him as he falls, silhouetting him, immortalizing him in that singular moment – one I know I shall never forget – so that he looks like a Miltonian angel falling with wrath and glory. His exoskeleton sheds its friction armor, as Lucifer might have shed the fetters of heaven, feathers of flame peeling off, fluttering behind. Then a missile slashes the sky and high-grade explosives christen him mortal once again.”

— Pierce Brown

289. “I hate this process. All it is is a confirmation of the superiority of the Golds. It takes all this to make me their physical equal. No wonder we serve them. It.”

— Pierce Brown

290. “Harmony and I speak very little to one another, but there is a subtle shift in our relationship, some sort of primal understanding that we are the same sort of creature.”

— Pierce Brown

291. “Go on.” I sip the coffee. “This is whiskey.”

— Pierce Brown

292. “I howl for my wife, for my father. For Ragnar and Quinn and Pax and Narol. For all the people I’ve lost. For all they would take. I howl because I am a Helldiver of Lykos. I am the Reaper of Mars. And I have paid for access to this bunker with my flesh, all so that I might either die with my friends or see our enemies brought to justice.”

— Pierce Brown

293. “Always negotiate with food.”

— Pierce Brown

294. “If he is treating them like Pinks, then it is because they merited no better in this little world than Pinks do in our big world.” “You’re joking.” Cassius can’t understand. “They are Golds, not Pinks. He’s a monster.”

— Pierce Brown

295. “That gulf that divided us is still there, filled with questions and recriminations and guilt, but that’s only part of love, part of being human. Everything is cracked, everything is stained except the fragile moments that hang crystalline in time and make life worth living.”

— Pierce Brown

296. “Wisdom is found in the heart not the head.”

— Pierce Brown

297. “My heart can’t stay here in this cage she herself fled. It must move on.”

— Pierce Brown

298. “Absent love, fear will do nicely in a pinch.”

— Pierce Brown

299. “Bye, Felicia.” Victra spits, turning to the last Praetorian.”

— Pierce Brown

300. “Snorting, Sevro drops back to where the legendary Obsidian, Sefi Volarus, stands in her customary silence. He feigns an air of domesticity, but next to the giant woman, he looks a little like some sort of gutter dog an alcoholic father might ill-advisedly bring home to play with the children – washed and rid of fleas, but still possessing that weird mania behind the eyes. Pinched, thin lipped, with a nose crooked as an old knifefighter’s fingers. He eyes the crowd with resigned distaste.”

— Pierce Brown