Emily Thorne quotes from Revenge

Emily

[opening voiceover] When I was a little girl, my understanding of revenge was as simple as the Sunday school proverbs it hid behind. Neat little morality slogans like, "do unto others" and "two wrongs don't make a right". But two wrongs can never make a right... because two wrongs can never equal each other. For the truly wronged, real satisfaction can only be found in one of two places, absolute forgiveness or mortal vindication. This is not a story about forgiveness.

Emily

[closing voiceover] When deception cuts this deep, someone has to pay. My father’s chance to bring justice to the truly guilty was stolen from him. His only option was to forgive. I have others. They say vengeance is a dish best served cold, but, sometimes, it’s as warm as a bowl of soup. My father died an innocent man, betrayed by the woman he loved. When everything you love has been stolen from you… …sometimes all you have left is revenge. Like I said, this is not a story about forgiveness.

Emily

[closing voiceover] Trust is a difficult thing. Whether it’s finding the right people to trust or trusting the right people will do the wrong thing. But trusting your heart is the riskiest thing of all. In the end, the only person we can truly trust is ourself.

Emily

The greatest weapon anyone can use against us is our own mind by preying on the doubts and uncertainties that already lurk there. Are we true to ourselves, or do we live for the expectations of others. And if we are open and honest, can we ever truly be loved? Can we find the courage to release our deepest secrets? Or in the end, are we all unknowable, even to ourselves?

Emily

Emily: Most of the memories I have from childhood are happy ones. Warm summer days filled with love and light, and the certainty that even the darkest storm would eventually pass. And for a while at least, they always did.

Emily

In revenge, as in life, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the end, the guilty always fall.

Emily

Guilt is a powerful affliction. You can try to turn your back on it, but that's when it sneaks up behind you and eats you alive. Some people struggle to understand their own guilt, unwilling or unable to justify the part they play in it. Others run away from their guilt, shutting their conscience until there's no conscience left at all. But I run toward my guilt. I feed off of it. I need it. My father died never knowing if I would ever come to believe his innocence. For me, guilt is one of the few lanterns that still light my way.

Emily

They say vengeance taken will tear the heart and torment the conscience. If there's any truth to it, then I now know with certainty that the path I'm on is the right one.

Emily

Like life, revenge can be a messy business. And both would be much simpler if only our heads could figure out which way our hearts will go. But the heart has its reasons which reason cannot know.

Emily

As Hamlet said to Ophelia, "God has given you one face, and you make yourself another". The battle between these two halves of identity... who we are and who we pretend to be... is unwinnable.

Emily

Just as there are two sides to every story, there are two sides to every person. One that we reveal to the world, and another that we keep hidden inside: a duality governed by the balance of light and darkness. Within each of us is the capacity for both good and evil. But those who are able to blur the moral dividing line hold the true power.

Emily

There's an old saying about those who cannot remember the past being condemned repeated. But those of us who refuse to forget the past are condemned to relive it.

Emily

The past is a tricky thing. Sometimes its etched in stone, and other times its rendered in soft memories. But if you meddle too long in deep dark things, who knows what monsters you'll awaken.

Emily

Its been written that a lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself, as is the object of his love from him. For my father, the secrets withheld by the woman he loved proved powerful enough to destroy him. I'm just beginning to now understand the enormity of that burden.

Emily

We all have secrets we keep locked away from the rest of the world: friendships we pretend, relationships we hide. But worst of all is the love we never let show. The most dangerous secrets a person can bury are those we keep from ourselves.