SENTENCE STARTERS → RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES BY SCOTT LYNCH
feel free to adjust pronouns and such to suit your needs ! warnings for language.
❛ the liquor almost did me in. next time i’m that optimistic, correct me with a hatchet to the skull. ❜
❛ who’s the biggest, meanest motherfucker here? ❜
❛ i’m the biggest, meanest motherfucker here. ❜
❛ i was pulling off hanging offences when you were still teeth-on-tits in your mother’s arms! ❜
❛ it is possible that i have been slightly too bold. ❜
❛ i take some of it back. you might still be a lying, cheating, low-down, greedy, grasping, conniving, pocket-picking son of a bitch. ❜
❛ wise in the ways of all such things is (your muse’s name). wiser by far than most, especially most named (other character’s name). ❜
❛ has anyone ever tried to cut out that disgustingly silver tongue of yours? ❜
❛ difficult and impossible are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common. ❜
❛ well, i shall be sure to criticize your reading habits, should i ever see you develop any. ❜
❛ i’m sorry. that was another shitty thing to say. ❜
❛ when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another? ❜
❛ dammit, don’t interrupt me when i’m feeling virtuously self-critical. ❜
❛ distrust everyone, and you can never be betrayed. opposed, but never betrayed. ❜
❛ i’ve never helped precipitate a civil war before. this should be fun. ❜
❛ if only you’d landed on your head, you’d have had nothing to fear but the bill for damaged cobblestones. ❜
❛ my sole experience with ships consists of getting on, getting seasick and getting off. ❜
❛ god, men are stupid. protect us from ourselves. if you can’t, let it be quick and painless. ❜
❛ we’re hanging together eighty feet above a messy death, aren’t we? i don’t do that with people i don’t like. ❜
❛ honestly, you people…pull a blade anywhere around here and everyone assumes straight away that you’ve killed someone. ❜
❛ i suppose this is the most lunatic thing we’ve ever done, and so we’re entitled to bloody well enjoy ourselves. ❜
❛ i saw little sense in making things harder for myself. i’ve got you to do that for me. ❜
❛ you’re ten pints of crazy in a one-pint glass. ❜
❛ trust me, if history’s a coin she’s sitting on a goddamn fortune. ❜
❛ a short joke. how remarkably original. i’ve never heard the like in all my days. ❜
❛ you’re a bold and stupid fellow. i think i almost like you again. ❜
❛ this bottle of brandy is still too full for me to begin embarrassing myself like that. ❜
❛ you seem to have a real talent for improvised dishonesty. ❜
❛ i know i’ve been hopeless for so long i wear it like armour. i don’t begrudge you anything you have. savour it. ❜
❛ when a woman has your heart, she doesn’t have poor moods. only interesting moods…and more interesting moods. ❜
❛ i say discretion is a pastime for other people. let’s run our arses off. ❜
❛ how did i ever live before i met you? ❜
❛ only one way to win when you’re being chased by someone bigger and tougher than you are. turn straight around, punch their teeth out and hope the gods are fond of you. ❜
❛ i told you not to give up, (name), and the thing about me is i get my way. ❜
❛ so this is what a command is. staring consequences in the eye, and pretending not to flinch. ❜
❛ stay as long as you like. i’ll be close. ❜
❛ my flesh, my blood, my breath and my love. ❜
❛ you miserable little sneak, how could you— ❜
❛ what? how dare i contemplate doing what you’re planning to do to me? you self-righteous strutting cock, i’ll— ❜
❛ i want to hug you. and i want to tear your goddamn head off. both at once. ❜
❛ you save my life all the time because you’re an idiot and you don’t know any better. let me…let me do it for you, just once. because you actually deserve it. ❜
❛ when you can’t cheat the game, you’d best find a way to cheat the players. ❜
❛ look for us in history books and you’ll find us in the margins. look for us in legends, and you might just find us celebrated. ❜
❛ the world is cruel enough without our compounding it. ❜
❛ only goddamn fools die for lines drawn on maps. ❜
❛ can’t fear the fire if you don’t scale your fingertips. ❜
❛ anyone in command feigns ease when death is near. we do it for those around us, and we do it for ourselves. we do it because the sole alternative is to die cringing. ❜
❛ i have a rule of thumb—if you have a puzzle and the answers are elegant and simple, it means someone is trying to fuck you over. ❜