Stormdancer Blog Tour: Quotes

I am extremely pleased to be a part of the Stormdancer blog tour! If you haven't read my review yet, you can read it HERE.

For the tour stop, I have decided to pick 8 of my favorite quotes from the book: SPOILER FREE. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to pick up your copy of Stormdancer in stores tomorrow (September 18, 2012). Also check out the other tour-stops HERE.

Also, note: THESE QUOTES ARE TAKEN FROM MY E-ARC COPY AND WILL BE CHECKED AGAINST A FINISHED COPY.

"Funny how quickly a man's best friend became man's next meal when there were no more cows or pigs left to slaughter. Funny how tasty the idea of roasted tomcat could sound after three days of eating nothing but dust and choking, blue-black smoke"

" 'Ungrateful shit,' she muttered. Her father would have scolded her for the unladylike language. She looked around the darkness, and realizing that there was no adults nearby to chastise her, she began shouting every bad word she could think of. A rainbow of profanity rolled between the trees, gutter-talk bouncing among walls of wood and ferns, beneath a ceiling of shadowed green. Spirits slightly buoyed by her tiny rebellion, Yukiko tromped off into the gloom."

" 'Wake up. The lotus must burn. The Guild must burn.'

'Burn,' murmured the Kage.

THEY SPEAK THE TRUTH. THEY SEE CLEARLY.

They kill innocent people.

CHANGE IS SELDOM BLOODLESS. SOME EYES WISH TO REMAIN OPEN. SOMETIMES THEY MUST BE CUT OPEN."

"You like the Kage.


THEY SEE. THEY KNOW.


What do you mean?


THEY TURN WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH. THEY USE THE EARTH. NO BARRICADES OF DEAD TREES. NO BULWARKS OF STONE. THEY ARE FEW, FACING MANY. AND THEY ARE NOT AFRAID TO DIE.

No fanatic ever is.


THEY WILL WIN. THOUGH IT TAKE A HUNDRED YEARS, THEY WILL TOPPLE YOUR SHOGUN. BURN HIS FIENDS AND CITIES. FADE AWAY INTO PLACES HIS ARMIES CANNOT REACH. MORE THAN FLESH. THEY ARE AN IDEA.


She watched the thunder tiger in the darkness, acutely aware of how much he had changed since the crash. His animal instinct, the primal aggression inside him, was being gradually tempered with elegant though, complex concepts, all too human impulses growing through their bond. She realized that the link between them was changing him, her humanity leaking into him like irezumi ink spilled on cotton weave. He was becoming more.

But what might she become?"

" 'I envy you, Yukiko-chan.' He stared at her across the pit, flame glittering in the steel-grey of his eyes. 'It took me forty years to learn that lesson. For the longest time, from the day I first held a wooden sword in my hands, I thought honor was defined by servitude. By carrying out the will of my Shogun, and living by the Way. I thought I was a man of courage, to do what others would not. But I know now that this kind of loyalty is cowardice. That the nobility of this country have abandoned the Code of Bushido, paying it lip service at best. To be a servant can be a noble thing, but only as noble as the master served.' " 

" 'Women in this city, on this island, we do not seem like we are important. We do no lead armies. We do not own lands, nor fight in wars. Men consider us nothing more than pretty distractions. Do not for a second believe that we are powerless. Never underestimate a woman's power over men, Kitsune Yukiko.' "

"IN THE END, ALL QUESTIONS CAN BE DISTILLED INTO ONE WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TOGIVE UP TO GET THE THINGS YOU WANT?


I'd give up my life for any one of you.


DYING IS EASY. ANYONE CAN THROW THEMSELVES ONTO THE PYRE AND REST A HAPPY MARTYR. ENDURING TE SUFFERING THAT COMES WITH SACRIFICE IS THE REAL TEST."

" 'For too long we have lived, fat and prosperous on the back of the machine, on the fuel that drives it. But there comes a time when the price grows too high, when the oil runs too red, when we begin building our lies on the shattered lives of others. And at the last, the machine we once controlled ends up controlling us.

Some in this land would have you bleed for them now, to plant their flag where another's once flew. Others would have you light a fire, to make ashes of the endless fields, to reduce those five-sided slave pits on the hill to rubble. A few would have you do nothing at all. To remain meek and cowed, to bow your heads and accept what the machine hands to you. They are of you, but they should be. The few should fear the many. ' "