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Famous Sabaa Tahir Quotes

“Sometimes, there is no reason. Sometimes you kill and you hate killing but you are a soldier through and through so you keep killing. Your friends die. Your lovers die. And what you have at the end of your life is not the surety that you did it for some grand reason, but the hard knowledge that something was taken from you and you also gave it away. And you know you will carry that weight with you always. For it is a regret that only death can relieve.”

Helene AquillaSabaa TahirA Sky Beyond The StormAvitas Harper
Book:A ​Sky Beyond the Storm
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“You think I want to feel this way about you? I hate it, Elias. Watching you flirt with Illustrian girls and sleep with Scholar slaves and find the good in everyone—everyone—but me.' A sob escapes her—the only time I've ever heard her cry. She chokes it back. 'Loving you is the worst thing that has ever happened to me—worse than the Commandant's whippings, worse than the Trials. It's torture, Elias.”

Helene AquillaElias VeturiusAn Ember In The Ashes
Book:An Ember in the Ashes
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“What good is war, Blood Shrike?" The sadness etched into his face feels ancient, the sorrow of a Soul Catcher instead of the friend I've known since childhood. "How many have died because of a king's greed or a commander's pride? How much pain exists in the world because we cannot get past what has been done to us, because we insist on inflicting pain right back”

WarHelene AquillaElias VeturiusBlood ShrikeSoul Catcher
Book:A ​Sky Beyond the Storm
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“How many in Antium lost those beloved to them when the Karkauns attacked? How many like Dex, who hide who they love because the Empire would kill them for it? How many like Laia, betrayed and then left to claw her way through her pain? How many like me, Shrike, pining for someone who no longer exists? You are lucky enough to love someone who loves you back. He is alive and breathing and in the same vicinity as you. By the skies, do something about it. However long you have. For whatever time you get. Because if you don't, I swear that you'll regret it. You'll regret it for all your years.”

MusaHelene
Author:Sabaa Tahir
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“Fight back, Laia. For Darin. For Izzi. For every Scholar this beast has abused. Fight. A scream bursts from me, and I claw at Marcus’s face, but a punch to my stomach takes the wind out of my lungs. I double over, retching, and his knee comer up into my forehead. The hallway spins, and I drop to my knees. Then I hear him laughting, a sadistic chuckle that stokes my defiance. Sluggishly, I throw myself at his legs. It won’t be like before, like during the raid when I let that Mask drag me about my own house like some dead thing. This time, I’ll fight. Tooth and nail, I’ll fight.”

SurvivalFightStrenghtLionessBadasseryLaiaBadass LadyFiercinessMarcus Farran
Book:An Ember in the Ashes
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“Contrary to what you might think, girl," Cook says, "the Commandant is not all-powerfull. She underestimated you, for one. She misread Spiro Teluman -- he is a man and so, in her mind, is onlly capable of a man's base appetites. She hasn't connected you to your parents. She makes mistakes, like everyone else. The only difference is that she doesn't make the same mistake twice. Keep that in mind and you just might be able to outwit her.”

MistakesOutwitAll Power Ful
Book:An Ember in the Ashes
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“It's a trick question, Aquilla. A Mask is not made. She is remade. First she is destroyed. Stripped down to the trembling child that lives at her core. It doesn't matter how strong she thinks she is. Blackcliff diminishes, humiliates, and humbles her." "But if she survives, she is reborn. She rises from the shadow world of failure and despair so that she might become as fearful as that which destroyed her. So that she might know darkness and use it as her scim and shield in her mission to serve the Empire.”

LifeDarknessPoignant
Book:A Torch Against the Night
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