Defiant Quotes

“Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you. What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“The only thing that will ever make me fall in love is: if I fall in love.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Decker smiled and shrugged off their laughter. The humour was only barbed if you sat on the outside, and now he was one of them.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“It was fine and good to be defiant to the end, but it was better not to get caught in the first place.”
― Julie Kagawa, The Immortal Rules

“She dressed in bohemian clothes, penned novels, panted, and yearned to roam forgotten corners of the world. She was habitually defiant and fearless, and when she felt controlled, as she often did, she could be irresistibly willfull. Mostly, she was bored silly by the vanilla sort boys who trailed her around, and by the stodgy set in Miami Beach.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“I don't have a master. I'm not sure if I have an equal.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, Circus of the Damned

“Och, Sarah, how shall I call augh’ beautiful again unless it be the sight of you?”
― Pamela Clare, Defiant

“First, the wind would rumble in the distance like an approaching river, then he would see grass bend, pressed by a great invisible hand. The dull rumble would rise in pitch to a swishing, lashing exultation, causing stalks to lie flat against the ground while the tougher branches of shrubs held themselves up and shrieked their defiance in the gusts. Then the first drops, cold and heavy, would plummet from the sky and burst on the ground.”
― Jonathan Renshaw, Dawn of Wonder

“Ned looked down gravely at the sword in his hands. “This is no toy for children, least of all for a girl. What would Septa Mordane say if she knew you were playing with swords?”

“I wasn’t playing,” Arya insisted. “I hate Septa Mordane.”

“That’s enough.” Her father’s voice was curt and hard. “The septa is doing no more than is her duty, though gods know you have made it a struggle for the poor woman. Your mother and I have charged her with the impossible task of making you a lady.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Congratulations, he said. "That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen." His expression was a mix of awe and disbelief. "Ever.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Back the fuck off fluffy!”
― Seth Tucker, Friedkin's Curse: A Werewolf Tale of Terror

“If anyone else told her to lower her voice, Roz would know what to do: scream louder.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

“Never apologize for correct actions.”
― R.J. Lawrence, The Xactilias Project

“And when she looks up into his eyes, she sees a new shade of green, and knows exactly what it is. The color of a man off-balance. His chest rises and falls as if it were a human thing.

Here is a place to put the knife.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Shocked at this rebuke, Sarah took a step backward. “But I…I am the daughter of a marquess. I cannot marry either—”

“You are new here, so I will explain. In this land, nobility comes not from one’s fathers or a title or from the land one owns, but from one’s actions.” His voice was hard-edged, and his words seemed harsh to her. “The MacKinnon brothers are the highest nobility to those who live on the frontier—true warriors, men who know how to fight and survive, men who put the lives of others before their own. Your family’s wealth, your title, your virtue—they mean nothing out here. They won’t fill your belly, and they won’t keep you alive. What matters most right now is your survival.”
― Pamela Clare, Defiant

“If I choose to take the pen from God and write the story of my life without Him, I better have plenty of erasers and a whole lot of white-out. Better yet, I should invest in a good shredder.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“He gave me a message to you. Leave London. Go home to Glenwood Park at once. There is great danger for you here, as you surely know."
"You may give him a message in return for me. He is not my husband. He has no authority over me. I shall do what I please."
"She's got some fight in her yet!" O'Shea said with a grin.”
― Gaelen Foley, Lord of Fire

“I don’t burn my bridges. I use nuclear weapons to vaporise them.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“They couldn’t fight an army when they were nothing more than shattered nerves and gritted teeth. All they had was untethered defiance, all heart and hope, with nothing to back it up. So they would have to find another way.”
― Jo Holloway, Defiance in Green & Gold

“He always took the leap
over the abyss
without thinking,
and always made it across--
until now.

Let them see it all.
Let them hear what Jonah
has to say.
Let them try and blame Jonah
for being Jonah.”
― Betty Culley, Three Things I Know Are True

“Shaking my head, I grinned in my defiance, and the room and the whole world became soft and buzzing, lights dangerously unfocused. Our shadows intermingled, a Chagall on the pale wood floor. My thoughts sudden and intriguing, like a rainbow you see for only a second—”
― Aspen Matis, Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir

“Words are defiant in silence.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Sunrise Standoff by Stewart Stafford

The grey men of dawn,
Sniffed the air on the hill,
Grunted at me to rejoin them,
I remained where I was.

Sunrise lit ashen shapes,
The standoff continued,
An eyeless search started,
Their clawing reached me.

I refused to go with them,
So they roared in my face,
Then disappeared downhill,
Leaving me in torn freedom.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved”
― Stewart Stafford

“You fall, you rise, you continue on, refusing to believe your failures until once more they strike you down. You return, slowly diminishing, but unwilling to stop, unwilling to succumb. You are your race, Lucius. You are humanity and as with the rest of your kind, I delight in your dance, all the way to its end.”
― Ian St. Martin, Lucius: The Faultless Blade

“His dragon's ability to let go of her hatred only impressed upon him again that he didn't deserve her.
'I'll take you anyways,' she had said.
'Why?' he croaked aloud. 'After all I did, why take me?'
'Because you protected me, and I know you always will.' She nodded to the brute. 'I'm glad I was able to defend you for once.'
'Is that what you think? That only I benefit from this?' He moved so that he could face her, looking into those purple eyes that had led him back through the dark. 'You saved me that day at Windshear, too. You've saved me a little every day since. I need you just as much. If anything, I need you more.'
Her eyes welled with affection, and their bond pushed outward, expanding visibly, and through Osric's soul still stabbed with pain, it was nothing like before.”
― Michael R. Miller, Defiant

“Mortarion was still the greater of them. He was still the stronger, the more steeped in preternatural gifts, but now all that he felt was doubt, rocked by the remorseless fury of one who had never been anything more than flighty, self-regarding and unreliable. All Mortarion could see just then was one who wished to kill him - who would do anything, sacrifice anything, fight himself beyond physical limits, destroy his own body, his own heart, his own soul, just for the satisfaction of the oaths he had made in the void.

'If you know what I did,' Mortarion cried out, fighting on now through that cold fog of indecision, 'then you know the truth of it, brother - I can no longer die.'

It was as if a signal had been given. The Khan's bloodied head lifted, the remnants of his long hair hanging in matted clumps. 'Oh, I know that,' he murmured, with the most perfect contempt he had ever mustered. 'But I can.'

Then he leapt. His broken legs still propelled him, his fractured arms still bore his blade, his blood-filled lungs and perforated heart still gave him just enough power, and he swept in close. If he had been in the prime of condition, the move might have been hard to counter, but he was already little more than a corpse held together by force of will, and so Silence interposed itself, catching the Khan under his armour-stripped shoulder and impaling him deep.

But that didn't stop him. The parry had been seen, planned for, and so he just kept coming, dragging himself up the length of the blade until the scythe jutted out of his ruptured back and the White Tiger was in tight against Mortarion's neck.

For an instant, their two faces were right up against one another - both cadaverous now, drained of blood, drained of life, existing only as masks onto pure vengeance. All their majesty was stripped away, scraped out across the utilitarian rockcrete, leaving just the desire, the violence, the brute mechanics of despite.

It only took a split second. Mortarion's eyes went wide, realising that he couldn't wrench his brother away in time. The Khan's narrowed.

'And that makes the difference,' Jaghatai spat. He snapped his dao across, severing Mortarion's neck cleanly in an explosion of black bile, before collapsing down into the warp explosion that turned the landing stage, briefly, into the brightest object on the planet after the Emperor's tormented soul itself.”
― Chris Wraight, Warhawk