Warhammer 40000 Quotes

“Loken tried to imagine the future, but the image would not form. Death would wipe them all from history. Not even the great First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon would survive forever. There would be a time when Abaddon no longer waged bloody war across the territories of humanity.
Loken sighed. That would be a sad day indeed. Men would cry out for Abaddon’s return, but he would never come.
He tried to picture the manner of his own death. Fabled, imaginary combats flashed through his mind. He imagined himself at the Emperor’s side, fighting some great, last stand against an unknown foe. Primarch Horus would be there, of course. He had to be. It wouldn’t be the same without him. Loken would battle, and die, and perhaps even Horus would die, to save the Emperor at the last.
Glory. Glory, like he’d never known. Such an hour would become so ingrained in the minds of men that it would be the cornerstone of all that came after. A great battle, upon which human culture would be based.
Then, briefly, he imagined another death. Alone, far away from his comrades and his Legion, dying from cruel wounds on some nameless rock, his passing as memorable as smoke.
Loken swallowed hard. Either way, his service was to the Emperor, and his service would be true to the end.”
― Dan Abnett, Horus Rising

“You can’t just run away when things aren’t going well. The Emperor has His plan for all of us. By denying it, you are at the risk of heresy, and we’ll all be held accountable.”
― Guy Haley, Avenging Son

“If we cannot laugh at cruelty, then it has already bested us.”
― Rachel Harrison, Mark of Faith

“We are but motes of dust, drifting in an endless sea; sparks that flare all too briefly. Our light does little to illuminate the fading universe, but it is in our nature to fight, to wrestle back the encroaching dark, to find a way. Thus, we open not our eyes, but our minds, and we are terrified by what it is we see.”
― George Mann, Awakenings

“When inquisitors fall, in my experience, they do so very hard indeed.”
― George Mann, Awakenings

“Adelynn raises her sword.
‘Fight,’ she says. ‘Suffer. Stand, until you cannot.”
― Rachel Harrison, Mark of Faith

“The door opened. I stopped. Beyond it, orks lined both sides of the corridor. They had been watching for me. The moment I appeared, they roared their approval. They did not attack. They simply stood, clashed guns against blades, and hooted brute enthusiasm. I had been subjected to too many celebratory parades on Armageddon not to recognise one when it confronted me. I went numb from the unreality before me. I stepped forward, though. I had no choice.

I walked. It was the most obscene victory march of my life. I moved through corridor, hold and bay, and the massed ranks of the greenskins hailed my passage. I saw the evidence of the destruction I had caused around every bend. Scorch marks, patched ruptures, buckled flooring, collapsed ceilings. But it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. Only enough for this… this…

At length, I arrived at a launch bay. There was a ship on the pad before the door. It was human, a small in-system shuttle. It was not built for long voyages. No matter, as long as its vox-system was still operative.

I knew that it would be.

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka awaited me beside the ship’s access ramp. I did not let my confusion or the sense that I had slipped into an endless waking nightmare slow my stride. I did not hesitate as I strode towards the monster. I stopped before him. I met his gaze with all the cold hatred of my soul. He radiated delight. Then he leaned forward, a colossus of armour and bestial strength. Our faces were mere centimetres apart.

My soul bears many scars from the days and months of my defeat and captivity. But there is one memory that, above all others, haunts me. By day, it is a goad to action. By night, it murders sleep. It lives with me always, the proof that there could hardly be a more terrible threat to the Imperium than this ork.

Thraka spoke to me.

Not in orkish. Not even in Low Gothic.

In High Gothic.

‘A great fight,’ he said. He extended a huge, clawed finger and tapped me once on the chest. ‘My best enemy.’ He stepped aside and gestured to the ramp. ‘Go to Armageddon,’ he said. ‘Make ready for the greatest fight.’

I entered the ship, my being marked by words whose full measure of horror lay not in their content, but in the fact of their existence. I stumbled to the cockpit, and discovered that I had a pilot.

It was Commander Rogge. His mouth was parted in a scream, but there was no sound. He had no vocal cords any longer. There was very little of his body recognisable. He had been opened up, reorganised, fused with the ship’s control and guidance systems. He had been transformed into a fully aware servitor.

‘Take us out of here,’ I ordered.

The rumble of the ship’s engines powering up was drowned by the even greater roar of the orks. I knew that roar for what it was: the promise of war beyond description.”
― David Annandale, Yarrick: The Omnibus

“What can we really do for this Imperium? Can we sustain it now, bearing its weight on our shoulders? Not the way we were made. But we can kill for it. We can break, we can burn, we can unmake. We have done everything they asked of us. We have held their battle line, scored it with our own blood, and it has not been enough. If we are to die here, on a world that has no soul and no open sky to rejoice in, then we will die doing what we were schooled to do.”
― Chris Wraight, Warhawk

“You cannot make the sun rise before it is ready to, no matter how fearsome you may be.”
― Rachel Harrison, Mark of Faith

“‘If you have nothing, then no one can steal from you.
Desire nothing and nothing can tempt you.
Lose everything and you can take anything.’

- Aphorism of the Nepenthe Collegium of the Scholastia Psykana”
― John French, Divination

“A single, simple longing was enough to damn him.”
― Guy Haley, Darkness in the Blood

“You don’t need to hear to listen to the truth.”
― John French, Black Oculus

“What is memory but the fashioning of a deep and personal fiction? In memory, we shape the world around ourselves, as if to prove our own existence, to demonstrate the mark we have left upon the universe. We become heralds of something better; the guiding light by which we believe all others might navigate. This, then, is the comfort we award ourselves for the act of living, for to comprehend the truth – that the universe is cold and ambivalent at best, and at worst despises our very existence – is to contemplate madness. So it is that we grow to love the lie.”
― George Mann, Awakenings

“The days of mankind are nearly done. For years I have been seeing it. All we can do while we are here is live. All any human ever has been able to do is live. That is all I tried to do.”
― Guy Haley, A Witch's Fate

“My last mission ended with me drifting for a hundred years in a warp storm.’
‘Well, we all have our moments.”
― George Mann, Awakenings

“To face one’s past is to face one’s future.”
― George Mann, Awakenings

“She had no idea what came next. And for once, the idea was pleasing.”
― George Mann, Awakenings

“They come to us because they’re jealous, lustful, or their minds have gone. I had a man tell my processors his own mother had fallen to the dark. He wanted to take her hab-unit. Three metres square, stinking like a grox-pen, underground, unheated. But it would have been his.”
― Chris Wraight, The Carrion Throne

“To have survived in a place like this, you must have light on your side.”
― Rachel Harrison, The Way Out

“ Following the light requires great strength of will. ”
― Rachel Harrison, The Way Out

“To break with ritual is to break with faith, brother...”
― Alec Worley, Stormseeker

“Iron does not take a single form whilst forsaking all others. The strength of iron is in its flexibility, its capacity to adapt to suit any situation.”
― Matt Westbrook, Medusan Wings

“Age is a matter of perspective.”
― Guy Haley, Godblight

“ They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery./b> ”
― Guy Haley, Godblight

“One mind is sometimes all it takes to change fate,’ Ulthran said defiantly.”
― Guy Haley, The Beheading

“I cannot allow my own convictions to get in the way of truth, for only in knowing the truth can victory be secured.”
― Guy Haley

“He charged headlong into dangerous territory. He should have stopped, but anger propelled him.”
― Guy Haley, Avenging Son

“He was posturing. So much posturing. Humans never tired of it.”
― David Annandale, The Oath in Darkness

“I’m not sure you even know where your truths end and your lies begin.”
― Richard S. Ford, Stealing Orpheon

“He took a deep breath. He felt the fear and wrapped his heart around it. He let it inhabit his whole being until there was nothing left of him. He looked up.”
― J.H. Archer, The Resting Places