Quotes About Sacrifice

My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for.

Take what you want and pay for it, says God. You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and you will have to pay it.

Have you noticed how easily the very young die? They make the best martyrs for any cause, the best soldiers, the best suicides. It's because they're held here so lightly: they haven't yet accumulated loves and responsibilities and commitments and all the things that tie us securely to this world. They can let go of it as easily and simply as lifting a finger. But as you get older, you begin to find things that are worth holding onto, forever.

Sometimes I think about the sly, flickering line that separates being spared from being rejected. Sometimes I think of the ancient gods who demanded that their sacrifices be fearless and without blemish, and I wonder whether, whoever or whatever took Peter and Jamie away, it decided I wasn't good enough.

Self-immolation's a nice gesture, but it doesn't usually achieve very much.

Everyone knows a wife and kids tie you down. What people miss sometimes is that mates, the proper kind, they do the same just as hard. Mates mean you've settled, made your bargain: this, wherever you are together, this is as far as you're going, ever. This is your stop; this is where you get off.

I'd never met...anyone who was worth giving up the more I wanted down the line.

once the ruler is no longer willing to be the sacrifice for his people, he becomes not a leader but a leech,

My father once told me that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for. If you don't know that, he said, what are you worth? Nothing. You're not a man at all.

I needed to go into that bare, with nothing from my own life on my body, the way woodcutters' children in fairy tales have to leave their protections behind to enter the enchanted castle; the way votaries in old religions used to go naked to their initiation rites.

When she was born I wanted to go out and kill someone for her, so she would know for sure, all her life, that I was ready to do it if it needed doing.

Sacrifice is not an option, or an anachronism; it´s a fact of life. We all cut off our own limbs to burn on some altar. The crucial thing is to choose an altar that is worth it and a limb you can accept losing.

Every time you say no to your big brother, God kills a kitten. Come on.

it's a fact of life. We all cut off our own limbs to burn on some altar. The crucial thing is to choose an altar that's worth it and a limb you can accept losing. To go consenting to the sacrifice.

Es gibt ein spanisches Sprichwort", sagte er, "das mich immer fasziniert hat. 'Nimm, was du willst, und bezahl dafür, sagt Gott.

There's a Spanish proverb," he said, "that's always fascinated me. 'Take what you want and pay for it, says God.

Take what you want and pay for it, says God.

You'd have brought her the moon.

You do what your woman or your kid needs, even when it feels a lot harder than dying.

Neem wat je wil, zegt God, en betaal er voor (Spaans gezegde).

the king led his men into battle. Always. That was what the ruler was: both on a practical level and on a mystical one, he was the one who stepped forwards to lead his tribe, put his life at stake for them, become the sacrifice for their safety. If he had refused to do that most crucial thing at that most crucial moment, they would have ripped him apart—and rightly so: he would have shown himself to be an impostor, with no right to the throne.

They're all used up by scrabbling to keep their footing; they don't have room to aim for anything bigger or farther than staying one jump ahead of bad things and snatching the occasional treat along the way. He

Fasting is, I think, a profoundly instinctive form of appeal.

You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and that you will have to pay it.