Quotes from Darren Shan

Better to Die in Honour than to live in Shame. -Arra Sails

We all make basic assumptions about things in life, but sometimes those assumptions are WRONG. We must never trust in what we assume, only in what we KNOW.

Childhood is the purest state. The pure of heart never leave it behind. Their life merely takes them on a cirtuitous route away from, and then back to it.

The world won't end with a bang or a whimper. It'll end with the death screams of a thousand demons and a defiant, carefree, savage, wolfen howl.

Shark snorts. " Hope ? What's that? I heard about it once, in a fairy tale.

Alive is better than dead. Always.

But I don't think Art's an Einstein - he likes tugging ears, biting people and burping too much to be a genius.

I always knew there was power in the earth, but it must be much stronger than I imagined to resist such a relentless foe, day after day, night after night, year after year.

This was selfish and wasteful. Cowardly. Nobody should voluntarily give up on life. If it was your time to die, death would calmly claim you. Otherwise it was your duty to press on and live. P29

That, of course, was when everything went wrong and the whole world crashed down around my ears.

I know that no matter how lonely I get, I'll never be truly alone again. Our loved ones don't leave us. They just move out of sight for a while, and wait...in the shades.

Look at me! I roar. Do you think you'll be the first I've killed today? I wasn't a murderer, but you changed me. I'm a monster now. And I'm hungry. Meera! Anotoine whines. Prae! Please, I beg you. You're civilised people. Help me! We can't, Prae says coldly. Even if we wanted to - and personally I have no problem with him gutting you - we couldn't. He's not ours to control. He's one of your specimens. You helped create him - now you have to deal with him

Normal people don't know how lucky—how blessed—they are.

If mankind's destined to bite the bullet, let's bite it and be damned.

Find the heroism within yourself to play out the hand you've been dealt. The universe never sets a challenge that can't be met.

Humans elect leaders on the basis of the promises they make. We [vampires] try to elect ours based solely on the strength of their character.

Kernel grins. "To the death, Master Grady?" "To the death, Master Fleck," I grin back. Then we both say together, "But not ours!

I will conduct myself with all due decorum. Mr. Crepsley said pompously, then added beneath his breath, but I will miss her. With all my heart and soul, I miss her.

Mr. Crepsley was every bit as composed as he'd sworn he would be. He didn't even shed a tear when the funeral litter was set alight. It was only later, when he was alone in his cell, that he wept loudly, and his cries echoed through the corridors and the tunnels of Vampire Mountain, far in the cold, lonely dawn.

Lovely Arra Sails, nectar to all males, how I'd like to spear you like a whaler spears a whale!

sometimes, in pursuit of a greater peace, a man must stand by and lets those he loves suffer the injustices of men ho cares only about their own beliefs and nothing about the faith or feelings of others-- even when it pains him to the very core of his spirit

Do not be such a baby, he jeered, tugging my hands free. It hurts! I howled. Of course it does. He laughed. It hurt me too. Did you think becoming a vampire was easy? Get used to the pain. Much of it lies ahead.

The pair smiled desperately at one another. And for the first time ever, despite the fact that everyone he knew - even the gods themselves - would condemn him for it, Jebel didn't think of Tel Hesani as a slave, but as an equal.

As a warrior, she won't have allowed herself to mourn. But women can't make themselves as detached as men. Our hearts are bigger. We feel loss in a way men don't. Orna has the body and mind of a warrior but her heart is like mine, and I know inside she's weeping.