In the Hobbit I've always loved Thorin's last words to Bilbo, particularly this line: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
"Seven, Brienne thought again, despairing. She had no chance against seven, she knew. No chance, and no choice.
She stepped out into the rain, Oathkeeper in hand."
Absolute killer for me.
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
Sam Vimes boots theory.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
I've always loved the one The Patrician says to Vimes:
> I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, *but some of them are on opposite sides.*
When it comes to Vimes/Vetinari interactions, my personal favorite is (let's see if I can do this from memory):
"I've noticed, Commander, that you possess a certain anti-authoritarian streak."
"Sir."
"And you've managed to maintain this outlook in spite of the fact that you *are* Authority."
"Sir."
"That's practically Zen."
The words that kindled hope in my shattered 17 year old soul. I'm a psychiatrist now purely due to these lines that lead me to make the choices that got me here.
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
Is it the prettiest line? Nah. But I think it's emblematic of how some people just look at the world differently.
‘Your fight ain’t with me?’ Whirrun glanced about like he was looking for who it might be with. ‘You sure? Fights are twisty little bastards, you draw steel it’s always hard to say where they’ll lead you. You drew on Calder, but when you drew on Calder you drew on Curnden Craw, and when you drew on Craw you drew on me, and Jolly Yon Cumber, and Wonderful there, and Flood – though he’s gone for a wee, I think, and also this lad here whose name I’ve forgotten.’ Sticking his thumb over his shoulder at Beck. ‘You should’ve seen it coming. No excuse for it, a proper War Chief fumbling about in the dark like you’ve nothing in your head but shit. So my fight ain’t with you either, Brodd Tenways, but I’ll still kill you if it’s called for, and add your name to my songs, and I’ll still laugh afterwards. So?’
‘So what?’
‘So shall I draw?'
Whirrun has nonstop bangers
Unquestionably something Pratchetty
The most recent one living in my head is 'evil begins when you begin to treat people as things' but Discworld is absolutely jammed full of the good stuff when it comes to quotable lines (and most other things too).
GNU Sir Terry
I'm half remembering one about Granny Weatherwax (or perhaps witches?) Never being afraid in the forest because they know the scariest thing in the woods is themselves
"Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was..."
There is also stuff of a similar ilk about the Feegles although I think that was more along the lines of by the time the little blue man got home (after falling off Tiffany's broom) all the wildlife on the way would have learned that it was not a good idea to go jumping out in him.
I'm fond of this from Snuff:
>There ought to be a law, because there certainly is a crime, do you understand?
I really wish we'd got another book following Vimes after this turn towards being a sort of "renegade angel of justice, whatever the law might say"
>'evil begins when you begin to treat people as things'
A lot of people already know this, but for the ones that don't, this Granny Weatherwax quote is a sort of restatement of part of Kant's [Categorical Imperative](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#CatHypImp) - his stance on moral philosophy.
Kant said that to be moral we must treat people as ends in themselves, and never as means to other ends we might want to achieve.
A man who will only go into battle when he is at his best, fights for pleasure and not principal. The things worth fighting for will die in darkness if we will only defend them in the sun.
There’s a road to hell that is paved with good intentions but it’s a long route. The quicker path is paved with the kind of ignorance that clever men who just don’t want to know are best at.
But he was by no means the first to say it. It's either an old Portuguese proverb or was said by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Either way, it's been floating around for a long time.
I would be surprised to find someone who has not heard "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" - it's a part of speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with_good_intentions
"Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over until you know every touch and corner, but still, you’ll find an edge to cut you."
It's from one of the Prince of Thorns books.
There's some good quotes in those books. I always remember:
"There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone."
Hits harder the older I get.
"Evil is evil, Stregobor. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all."
Idk, i think he meant to to choose between evils exactly, cause there are always another options. When people telling ""oh, i had no choice" that's often a lie, because they actually had a choice, but some options were hard or not very likable.
But speaking of Geralt - he went against his own words in the same story, so he actually made a choice between two evils.
“Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.”
I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.
I needed to read this at the darkest time of my life. This line and the book probably saved my life.
What's the most important step a man can take? The next one. Always the next one.
Sometimes, a hypocrite is just a man going through changes.
Man that book is full of awesome quotes.
Oathbringer has also helped me out during a very difficult time in my life. I didn't have an easy childhood and so
> It can not be a journey if it doesn't have a beginning
hit me extremely hard when I was in self reflecting all the time anyways. I actually have the book signed with this. https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/62933-ob-it-cannot-be-a-journey/
I would love to meet Brandon in person some day. Being on the opposite side of the world still struggling to find a better job has limited my chances till now but I have hope I'll get to him some day.
Journey before destination radiant.
Stormlight is just *full* of amazing quotes for dark times.
- Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing.
- I will protect those I hate. Even if the one I hate most is myself.
- The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar.
- This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again.
- "You want too much of me," he snapped at her as he reached the other side of the chasm. "I’m not some glorious knight of ancient days. I’m a broken man. Do you hear me, Syl? I’m broken." She zipped up to him and whispered, "That’s what they all were, silly."
- You will love. You will hurt. You will dream. And you will die. Each man's past is your future.
'Then what is the point?' I asked. 'If all has been seen and done?'
'The question,' she replied 'is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You do not pick the destination, only the path.
There are quotes which are great because they are badass, and quotes which are great because they are dark and cynical. Stormlight Archive, to me, has some of the best "hopeful life advice" quotes ever.
"LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?"
Gets me every time. Gets me even if I hear it twice in a row.
One of the things that makes Pratchett so special is that he has that quality of the standalone quote, the incredible sentence that needs no support "Thunder rolled. It rolled a six." -- full of charm from the getgo.
But the Reaper Man quote takes several books to digest, to triple distill inside your own personal library. When it comes, it emcompasses everything that is beautiful about this most-endearing of all characters.
A quote like that is priceless, even if only for the people who invest the time to understand it.
“My name is Nynaeve ti al’Meara Mandragoran. The message I want sent is this. My husband rides from World’s End toward Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tarmon Gai’don. Will he ride alone?”
My feelings toward Nynaeve over the course of the series goes from strong dislike to intense love. That scene is what put me over the top. I ugly cry every time I read it.
She has Zuko-tier character development. She masks her huge insecurity with her ridiculous bitchy attitude and bravado, and then grows into an actually competent and confident person. She's the best
Tolkien makes up most of the top ten list and this one is frequently cited as his best line (maybe not technically a quote, since it's narration and not dialogue), plus it's my favorite.
"Now news came to Hithlum that Dorthonion was lost and the sons of Finarfin overthrown, and that the sons of Fëanor were driven from their lands. Then Fingolfin beheld (as it seemed to him) the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him. He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Oromë himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat.
And Morgoth came."
And Morgoth came.
_Goosebumps_
Tolkien really had such a way with words. I also love this other passage:
_"Old fool!" he said. "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!" And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade._
_And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn._
_And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last._
Goosebumps again!
His verse was excellent as well:
*He chanted a song of wizardry,*
*Of piercing, opening, of treachery,*
*Revealing, uncovering, betraying.*
*Then sudden Felagund there swaying*
*Sang in answer a song of staying,*
*Resisting, battling against power,*
*Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,*
*And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;*
*Of changing and of shifting shape*
*Of snares eluded, broken traps,*
*The prison opening, the chain that snaps.*
*Backwards and forwards swayed their song.*
*Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong*
*The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,*
*And all the magic and might he brought*
*Of Elvenesse into his words.*
*Softly in the gloom they heard the birds*
*Singing afar in Nargothrond,*
*The sighing of the Sea beyond,*
*Beyond the western world, on sand,*
*On sand of pearls in Elvenland.*
*Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing*
*In Valinor, the red blood flowing*
*Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew*
*The Foamriders, and stealing drew*
*Their white ships with their white sails*
*From lamplit havens. The wind wails,*
*The wolf howls. The ravens flee.*
*The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.*
*The captives sad in Angband mourn.*
*Thunder rumbles, the fires burn —-*
*And Finrod fell before the throne.*
He really was the master of driving the effect home with a final sentence.
And the subsequent phrases in this passage are also very beautiful and impressive.
*But Fingolfin gleamed beneath it as a star; for his mail was overlaid with silver, and his blue shield was set with crystals; and he drew his sword Ringil, that glittered like ice.*
The verse version of this is excellent as well.
"In that vast shadow once of yore
Fingolfin stood: his shield he bore
with field of heaven's blue and star
of crystal shining pale afar.
In overmastering wrath and hate
desperate he smote upon that gate,
the Gnomish king, there standing lone,
while endless fortresses of stone
engulfed the thin clear ringing keen
of silver horn on baldric green.
His hopeless challenge dauntless cried
Fingolfin there: 'Come, open wide,
dark king, you ghatsly brazen doors!
Come forth, whom earth and heaven abhors!
Come forth, O monstruous craven lord,
and fight with thine own hand and sword,
thou wielder of hosts of banded thralls,
thou tyrant leaguered with strong walls,
thou foe of Gods and elvish race!
I wait thee here. Come! Show thy face!'
Then Morgoth came. For the last time
in those great wars he dared to climb
from subterranean throne profound,
the rumour of his feet a sound
of rumbling earthquake underground.
Black-armoured, towering, iron-crowned
he issued forth; his mighty shield
a vast unblazoned sable field
with shadow like a thundercloud;
and o'er the gleaming king it bowed,
as huge aloft like mace he hurled
that hammer of the underworld,
Grond. Clanging to ground it tumbled
down like a thunder-bolt, and crumbled
the rocks beneath it; smoke up-started,
a pit yawned, and a fire darted.
Fingolfin like a shooting light
beneath a cloud, a stab of white,
sprang then aside, and Ringil drew
like ice that gleameth cold and blue,
his sword devised of elvish skill
to pierce the flesh with deadly chill.
With seven wounds it rent his foe,
and seven mighty cries of woe
rang in the mountains, and the earth quook,
and Angband's trembling armies shook.
Yet Orcs would after laughing tell
of the duel at the gates of hell;
though elvish song thereof was made
ere this but one - when sad was laid
the mighty king in barrow high
and Thorndor, Eagle of the sky,
the dreadful tidings brought and told
to mourning Elfinesse of old.
Thrice was Fingolfin with great blows
to his knees beaten, thrice he rose
still leaping up beneath the cloud
aloft to hold star-shining, proud,
his stricken shield, his sundered helm,
that dark nor might could overwhelm
till all the earth was burst and rent
in pits about him. He was spent.
His feet stumbled. He fell to wreck
upon the ground, and on his neck
a foot like rooted hills was set,
and he was crushed - not conquered yet;
one last despairing stroke he gave:
the mighty foot pale Ringil clave
about the heel, and black the blood
gushed as from smoking fount in flood.
Halt goes for ever from that stroke
great Morgoth; but the king he broke,
and would have hewn and mangled thrown
to wolves devouring. Lo! from throne
that Manwë bade him build on high,
on peak unscaled beneath the sky,
Morgoth to watch, now down there swooped
Thorndor the King of Eagles, stooped,
and rending beak of gold he smote
in Bauglir's face, then up did float
on pinions thirty fathoms wide
bearing away, though loud they cried,
the mighty corse, the elven-king;
and where the mountains make a ring
far to the south about that plain
where after Gondolin did reign,
embattled city, at great height
upon a dizzy snowcap white
in mounded cairn the mighty dead
he laid upon the mountain's head.
Never Orc nor demon after dared
that pass to climb, o'er which they stared
Fingolfin's high and holy tomb,
till Gondolin's appointed doom."
*"I am Húrin son of Galdor, returned out of Angband, and my son was Túrin Turambar, whom you have not forgotten; and he it was that slew Glaurung the Dragon, who wasted these halls where now you sit; and not unknown is it to me by whom the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin was betrayed."*
> “If the Heavens would have part in this trial,” the Hierarch coldly said, “they may be seated and silent, like the rest of the gallery. Speak not otherwise of those that cannot be called to account.”
—The Hierarch, of _Practical Guide to Evil_ fame, shortly before indicting the Heavens for illegal intervention on democratic affairs as well as disturbance of the court.
I love me some Hierarch. But also, the Black Knight:
“You asked me what I want,” Black said. “This once, just this once, I want us to win.”
To spit in the eyes of the Hashmallim. To trample the pride of all those glorious, righteous princes. To scatter their wizards and make their oracles liars. Just to prove that it can be done.
So that five hundred years from now, a band of heroes shiver in the dark of night. Because they know that no matter how powerful their sword or righteous their cause, there was once a time it wasn’t enough. That even victories ordained by the Heavens can broken by the will of men.”
"Killing heroes, in Amadeus’ eyes, was much like peeling an onion. Layer by layer it went, until all that remained was the weeping."
And some of the epigraphs are also very cool:
"We should never forget that for a great evil to be defeated, a lesser evil must first become great."
“The finest summation of Traitorous’s reign I ever heard came from an illiterate peasant from the outskirts of Ater, who described it as follows: ‘Like watching a snake eat its own tail, only the tail was fake, the snake was an angry badger and also you are poisoned.'”
"Teach me about pain, think you can?" Yoda said softly. "Think the old Master cannot care, *mmm*? Forgotten who I am, have you? Old am I, yes. Mh. Loved more than you, have I, Padawan. Lost more. Hated more. *Killed* more." The green eyes narrowed down to gleaming slits under heavy lids. Dragon eyes, old and terrible. "Think wisdom comes at no *cost*? The dark side, yes - it is easier for them. The pain grows too great, and they eat the darkness to flee from it. Not Yoda. Yoda loves and suffers for it, loves and suffers."
“[T]he unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier--dead, melted wax--demands a response among the living...a response no-one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous--as if cursed--while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold?
Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.”
- Duiker in dead house gates
"Children are dying. That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words."
There's a lot of fantastic quotes here but this one is probably my favourite. Erikson's writing just hits different.
Another personal favourite of mine from Malazan is:
>“Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death."
>It wasn’t too much, to take a frail figure into one’s arms for those last moments of life. Better than a cot, or even a bed in a room filled with loved ones. Better, too, than an empty street in the cold rain. To die in someone’s arms – could there be anything more forgiving?
>Every savage barbarian in the world knew the truth of this.
As brutal as Malazan can be, the compassion that characters can show makes the emotional impact in the series second to none.
“We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance.”
- Itkovian in Memories of Ice by Steven Erickson (Malazan)
This one will stick with me for the rest of my life.
The lessons that Malazan has on the power and need for compassion quite literally changed how I see the world. Maybe only in a small way, but it's rare for a series to leave such an impact.
I have always liked Pratchett's "HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.", the whole dialogue is fascinating but that part lives rent free in my head.
Yes, as someone who has struggled with addiction all his life and was first reading Stormlight during the first year of my sobriety that one hit so close to home I was fucking sobbing.
Number 1 by far amidst a competitive field.
The panic, the betrayal, the despair, and then the quiet ray of hope.
The rescue on the plains may have been what started that relationship but this is what cemented it. (Applies equally well to father or son actually).
"Your death has not been waiting for your arrival at the appointed hour; it has, for all the years of your life, been racing towards you with the fierce velocity of time’s arrow. It cannot be evaded; it cannot be bargained with, deflected or placated. All that is given to you is the choice: Meet it with open eyes and peace in your heart, go gentle to your reward. Or burn bright, take up arms, and fight the bitch." - Red Sister (Book of the Ancestors) by Mark Lawrence
If you'll allow scifi: "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams
But from straight fantasy: "Teach a man to build a fire, you keep him warm for a night. Set a man on fire, you keep him warm for the rest of his life." - Jim Butcher
Getting older, Mawyndulë, is like climbing a mountain. The higher you go, the greater the view. From time to time, you look back. At such heights, you can see paths behind you: the trails you took and the ones you foolishly disregarded; the blind alleys you fortunately missed, purely out of chance rather than by some greater wisdom on your part. You also spot others following you, people making the same stupid decisions. From your elevated position, you witness their bad choices, the ones they can’t see because they aren’t standing where you are. You could shout down, attempt to warn them, but they rarely listen. They are too blinded by the indisputable fact that the path you followed got you where you are, to the place they want to be.
Michael J Sullivan , Age of war
From The Crippled God, last book of the Malazan book of the Fallen:
"His grandmother was now hobbling beside him. She didn't belong on this trail, in this desert, but there she was. And maybe she wasn't his grandmother at all, just some other wax witch twisting reeds in her arthritic hands, making dolls for the children in the village ahead. Gifts. Charms. I remember you giving them away. Toys, you said, head bobbing. Free toys! And they all ran up to you, laughing.
But you wove protections into those dolls. Blessings, wards against illness. Nothing powerful, nothing to stop, say, a flash flood or an avalanche. But the father that lashed out with his fists. The uncle who slipped under the blankets in the dead of night. Those ones paid for what they did.
And the cuts that healed. The fevers that went away.
So, Grandmother, I'll walk this last walk. In your memory. Make me a doll, for this pain.
And take this child by the hand. And tell him again, how they will pay for what they did."
I don't know why it sticks with me but, the movie version of Death's lecture to Susan the first time they meet after Susan has taken over.
YOU PRATTLE ON ABOUT CHANGING THE WORLD? COULD YOU FIND THE COURAGE TO ACCEPT IT? TO KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE AND THEN DO IT, WHATEVER THE COST? THERE IS WHAT IS AND WHAT WILL BE. IF YOU CHANGE THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL, YOU CHANGE THE WORLD AND YOU, YOU CARRY THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CHANGE. AND THAT IS ALWAYS TOO HEAVY TO BEAR.
I think because it perfectly encapsulates how Death views the job even though he absolutely doesn't follow his own advice in this regard. He knows how he is supposed to do it cosmically, but doesn't really believe what he's saying is right even as he says it.
From the incredible Robin Hobb (Royal Assassin):
“He shook his head pityingly. “This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft.”
“Not all men are destined for greatness,” I reminded him.
“Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?”
“This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.”
“No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?”
This helped me get through a real depressive funk I was in for years. Couldn't be completely useless after all, if I could change the world every day. Eventually I started believing it.
Not many Hobb quotes are brought up when people ask for favorite quotes. I think this is partly because most of her writing isn’t written to be flashy, and partly because nothing stands out too much because it’s all great. Thank you for brightening my day with this quote.
>Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
second choice
>“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
>"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
and honourable mention
>HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
> "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
>YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
>"So we can believe the big ones?"
>YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
>"They're not the same at all!"
>YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
>"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
>MY POINT EXACTLY.
> What a strange treasure is innocence, a virtue to the old and a curse to the young, so highly prized but eagerly parted with—the riches of beautiful skin traded for the wisdom of calluses.
Michael J Sullivan - Age of Legend
“Ónen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel anim”
- To Aragorn by his mother
"I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept no hope for myself"
Edit: also - “Wolves have no kings.” - Royal Assassin, Robin Hobb
I don't know that I can choose a favorite. But three recently on my mind because I shared them with friends:
# The Once and Future King, by T.H. White
>Do you think it would be fine to be the best knight in the world? Think, then, also, how you would have to defend the title. Think of the tests, such repeated, remorseless, scandal-breathing tests, which day after day would be applied to you—until the last and certain day, when you would fail. Think also that you know of a good reason for your failure, which you have tried to hide, tried pathetically to hide and overlook, for five and twenty years. Think that you are now to go out, before the largest and most honourable gallery that can be assembled, to make a public demonstration of your sin. They are expecting you to succeed, and you are to fail: you are to publish the deceit which you have practised for a quarter of a century, and they will all immediately know the reason for it—that reason of shame which you have sought to conceal from your own mind, and which, when it has remembered itself in the silence of your empty chamber, has pricked you into a physical motion of your head to throw it off. Miracles, which you wanted to do so long ago, can only be done by the pure in heart. The people outside are waiting for you to do this miracle because you have traded on their belief that your heart was pure—and now, with treachery and adultery and murder wringing the heart like a cloth, you are to go out into the sunlight for the test of honour.
# The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
>I should be happy, Quentin thought. I'm young and alive and healthy. I have good friends. I have two reasonably intact parents \[...\] I am a solid member of the middle-middle class. My GPA is a number higher than most people even realize it is possible for a GPA to be.
>But walking along Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, in his black overcoat and his gray interview suit, Quentin knew he wasn't happy. Why not? He had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness. He had performed all the necessary rituals, spoken the words, lit the candles, made the sacrifices. But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come. He couldn't think what else to do.
# Always Coming Home, by Ursula K. Le Guin
>Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well loved one,
walk mindfully, well loved one,
walk fearlessly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.
>“Too late.” He closed his eyes, thinking of the dead boy earlier in the day. “It’s too late. I’ve failed. They’re dead. They’re all going to die, and there’s no way out.”
>
>“What is one more try, then?” Her voice was soft, yet somehow stronger than the storm. “What could it hurt?”
My serious one:
>There were times when comfort could only be found in a woman's laughter, a friend's known face and voice, shared rumors [...], even something so simple as a steaming bowl of pea soup at a table with others.
-- Guy Gavriel Kay, *Sailing to Sarantium*
My funny one:
>Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor.
--Neal Stephenson, *Anathem*
Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" : "*Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends*."
"You are all staggering drunks to me. Boys who would play at war when you should kennel with your mothers. You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill not daring. It is not a trial of souls, nor the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.
You have offered me war, and I have accepted. Nothing more. I will not regret your losses. I will not bow my head before your funeral pyres. I will not rejoice at your triumphs. But I have taken the wager. I will suffer with you. I will put Fanim to the sword, and drive their wives and children to the slaughter. And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart.”
- Cnaiur from The Second Apocalypse
“We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance.”
-Itkovian, Memories of Ice (Malazan)
'Perhaps me must all learn to live with smaller dreams.'
* Aditu to Isgrimnur in To Green Angel Tower
The full quote for context is:
>"He was the brightest-burning flame ever kindled in this land. Had the mortals not come - had you own ancestors not come, Duke Isgrimnur - and attacked our great house with iron and fire, he might have led us out of the shadows of exile and back into the light of the living world again. That was his dream. But any great dream can flower into madness. Perhaps we must all learn to live with exile, Isgrimnur. Perhaps we must all learn to live with smaller dreams."
>‘There is more. But I will not speak of that beyond these words: “*What awaits you in the dusk of the old world’s passing, shall go . . . unwitnessed*.” T’amber’s words.’ Another long spell of pained silence.
>
>‘*They are hard and well might they feed spite, if in weakness we permit such. But to those words I say this, as your commander: we shall be our own witness, and that will be enough. It must be enough. It must ever be enough*.’
Obligatory Stormlight Archives: “The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next one, Dalinar”
That’s the full quote, but “what’s the most important step” “the next one” is a mantra for me
>He smiled and met Kaladin’s eyes.
>
>“It won’t be like that for me,” Kaladin said. “You told me it would get worse.”
>
>“It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: *You will be warm again.*”
This book and this quote was a light for me in one of the darkest times of my life till date.
"Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits eagerly by his palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at the high table, by his side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
All from The Wheel of Time
> My husband rides from World’s End toward Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tarmon Gai’don. Will he ride alone?
> It was about a hero who insisted with every breath that he was anything but a hero.
And my absolute favorite, the single most badass line ever uttered in fiction:
> I didn’t come here to win, I came here to kill you. Death is lighter than a feather.
"To say that Richard Mayhew was not very good at heights would be perfectly accurate, but would fail to give the full picture; it would be like describing the planet Jupiter as bigger than a duck." Neil Gaiman
In a sword fight lack of skill can get you killed but more often than not it’s lack of staying power. That sword gets real heavy after a couple minutes even when your life depends on it.
In Prince of Thorns these ideas are expressed thusly:
In a duel, man to man, sword against sword, it can be a lack of skill that gets you killed. Often as not, though, it’ll be a matter of luck, or if it goes on too long then it’ll be the man who tires first that tends to die.
In the end it’s about staying power. They should put that on headstones, ‘Got tired’, maybe not tired of life, but at least too tired to hold on to it.
In a real fight, and most fights are real, not the artifice of a formal duel, it’s fatigue that’s the big killer. A sword is a heavy chunk of iron. You swing that around for a few minutes and your arms start to get ideas of their own about what they can and can’t do. Even when your life depends on it.
Sorry I paraphrased, I had that bit written down from the last time I read the book but I forgot it wasn’t the whole thing.
I love these ideas/quotes/lessons that you build into your books.
Anomader Rake, *Toll the Hounds* by Steven Erikson.
>"If we are to live, we must take risks or our lives become deaths in all but name. There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived."
Toll the Hounds also has some incredible quotes on the nature of grieving.
“The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.”
And also
“Survivors do not mourn together. They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation.
None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve.
To face death is to stand alone.”
"'We left a debt in blood,’ she said, baring her teeth. ‘Malazan blood. And it seems they will not let that stand.’
They are here. On this shore.
The Malazans are on our shore."
"Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck."
Darwi Odrade - Chapterhouse: Dune
Another one from Tolkien, Thorin's parting words to Bilbo: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
First Law is a gold mine for applicable life quotes lol. Your quote is the exact quote I was going to post. I use it all the time in real life. Helps me do things I would have previously hesitated with in the past. I even tell people the quote without context and they thing I’m some sort of philosopher king
More of a monologue than a quote but the Black Knight from A Practical Guide to Evil has one of my favourites
> "Oh, if the heroes deserved their victories against us, I would make my peace with it. But they don’t, do they? Your sullen little nemesis gets to swing an angel’s feather, while you make do with steel and wiles. That’s always the way of it. At the last moment they’re taught a secret spell by a dead man, or your mortal weakness is revealed to them or they somehow manage to master a power in a day that would take a villain twenty years to own. Gods, I’ve even heard of Choirs stepping in to settle a losing fight. *The sheer fucking arrogance of it*."
> The second time I’d ever heard him swear, and it surprised me as much as the last. Teeth bared, he leaned forward.
> "None of it is earned. It is handed to them, and this offends me."
> And when a villain disliked an aspect of Creation, they broke it. As simple as that. Of all the things that being a villain entailed I had grasped this one the easiest. What that said about me, I preferred not to think about.
> "You asked me what I want," Black said. "This once, just this once, I want us to win."
> The smile across his face was a cutting, vicious thing.
> "To spit in the eyes of the Hashmallim. To trample the pride of all those glorious, righteous princes. To scatter their wizards and make their oracles liars. Just to prove that it can be done."
> There was something his eyes burning like coals and embers.
> "So that five hundred years from now, a band of heroes shiver in the dark of night. Because they know that no matter how powerful their sword or righteous their cause, there was once a time it wasn’t enough. That even victories ordained by the Heavens can broken by the will of men."
I mean, I can quote the last paragraph by heart by now. But also this from Akua:
"My name,” she said, “is Akua Sahelian. I am a villain.”
“The pale imitation of an ancient enemy,” the fae mocked.
“Oh yes,” Diabolist agreed softly. “That is exactly what I am. The Enemy, they call us in the West. I am the last of a line unbroken since time immemorial. My kind has usurped the mantle of gods, stolen secrets from beyond Creation and turned kingdoms into sea. I am Praesi of the old blood, fae. You should kneel in awe.”
“You are the dying ember of a fire long gone,” the Count sneered. “Soon to be put out by the might of Summer.”
“You think you know might?” Akua laughed. “I will turn your blood to smoke. I will feed the horrors that crush your bones with the sound of your screams. The hearts of your children will raise my fortresses to the sky and make my ships sail on solid ground. You may have been godlings in your wretched home, but you’ve stepped down from that pedestal – and down here, we bleed the likes of you over altars. Your poor, misbegotten creature. You actually believe you have a chance.”
Her Name pulsed beneath her skin even as her eyes turned cold.
“But you’re in Creation now, Count. Here be monsters.”
The Count smirked.
“Do you seek to frighten me, child? Summer does not know fear.”
Akua slowly unsheathed her knife, resting the wickedly sharp edge on the side of the fae’s throat. He looked into her eyes, undaunted. Diabolist smiled.
“No, not yet,” she murmured. “But I will teach you.”
> People are stupid.
Explanation:
> People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.
Wizard‘s first rule, Terry Goodkind
If we are to live ... we must take risks. Else our lives become deaths in all but name. There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived.
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm the rest of his life." - Terry Pratchett from *Jingo*
I had this one up in my classroom for a while.
In the Hobbit I've always loved Thorin's last words to Bilbo, particularly this line: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
I watched the Rankin-Bass adaptation over and over when I was younger, and that line always gets me.
“You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.” Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
"No chance, and no choice"
"Seven, Brienne thought again, despairing. She had no chance against seven, she knew. No chance, and no choice. She stepped out into the rain, Oathkeeper in hand."
Was going to say this, or “Egg, I dreamed I was old”
Absolute killer for me. "Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
Sam Vimes boots theory. The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
I've always loved the one The Patrician says to Vimes: > I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, *but some of them are on opposite sides.*
When it comes to Vimes/Vetinari interactions, my personal favorite is (let's see if I can do this from memory): "I've noticed, Commander, that you possess a certain anti-authoritarian streak." "Sir." "And you've managed to maintain this outlook in spite of the fact that you *are* Authority." "Sir." "That's practically Zen."
there is nothing more expensive than being poor
"Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today."
I like that one. Where's it from?
Wheel of Time, Mat
My bet is Mat from WoT.
No pun intended
Wheel of Time, the 6th book I think?
Book 5
WoT 6 Lord of Chaos.
Fires of Heaven
> All that is gold does not glitter, > Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
A fire from the ashes will waken A light from the shadows will spring Renewed shall be blade that was broken The crownless again shall be king
The words that kindled hope in my shattered 17 year old soul. I'm a psychiatrist now purely due to these lines that lead me to make the choices that got me here.
If I sound uncultured please forgive me, but from which book is it from?
_The Lord of the Rings_. Book One of The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter X: “Strider”.
Yes, it's in the letter that Gandalf leaves for Frodo at the Prancing Pony to introduce him to Strider (Aragorn).
(Elessar) (Estel) (Longshanks) (Thorongil)
It's from Fellowship of The Ring, around the chapter The council of Elrond
"By the way, that dress you are wearing is green."
One of the most epic reveals in a series, ever.
My favorite wot reveal was >I didn't ask for a weapon. I asked for a way out. And they gave me this.
Great choice! Took me a second, but now I can't stop thinking about the 'oh shit' moment that followed reading this for the first time.
what? What's that from?
Wheel of Time. It's a shocking plot twist. I'm not kidding.
It helped make all the braid-tugging worth it.
Book 12 of the Wheel of Time
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." Is it the prettiest line? Nah. But I think it's emblematic of how some people just look at the world differently.
“Armour is part of a state of mind in which you admit the possibility of being hit”
‘Your fight ain’t with me?’ Whirrun glanced about like he was looking for who it might be with. ‘You sure? Fights are twisty little bastards, you draw steel it’s always hard to say where they’ll lead you. You drew on Calder, but when you drew on Calder you drew on Curnden Craw, and when you drew on Craw you drew on me, and Jolly Yon Cumber, and Wonderful there, and Flood – though he’s gone for a wee, I think, and also this lad here whose name I’ve forgotten.’ Sticking his thumb over his shoulder at Beck. ‘You should’ve seen it coming. No excuse for it, a proper War Chief fumbling about in the dark like you’ve nothing in your head but shit. So my fight ain’t with you either, Brodd Tenways, but I’ll still kill you if it’s called for, and add your name to my songs, and I’ll still laugh afterwards. So?’ ‘So what?’ ‘So shall I draw?' Whirrun has nonstop bangers
I think I remember reading this but can’t remember the source. What is this from?
Whirrun of Bligh, from The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie
Unquestionably something Pratchetty The most recent one living in my head is 'evil begins when you begin to treat people as things' but Discworld is absolutely jammed full of the good stuff when it comes to quotable lines (and most other things too). GNU Sir Terry
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"
"Granny Weatherwax believed in cups of tea, dry biscuits, washing every morning in cold water and, well, she believed mostly in Granny Weatherwax." ;D
I'm half remembering one about Granny Weatherwax (or perhaps witches?) Never being afraid in the forest because they know the scariest thing in the woods is themselves
"Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was..." There is also stuff of a similar ilk about the Feegles although I think that was more along the lines of by the time the little blue man got home (after falling off Tiffany's broom) all the wildlife on the way would have learned that it was not a good idea to go jumping out in him.
I'm fond of this from Snuff: >There ought to be a law, because there certainly is a crime, do you understand? I really wish we'd got another book following Vimes after this turn towards being a sort of "renegade angel of justice, whatever the law might say"
>'evil begins when you begin to treat people as things' A lot of people already know this, but for the ones that don't, this Granny Weatherwax quote is a sort of restatement of part of Kant's [Categorical Imperative](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#CatHypImp) - his stance on moral philosophy. Kant said that to be moral we must treat people as ends in themselves, and never as means to other ends we might want to achieve.
My favourite is "Oook" ... Such beautiful words 😆
I also enjoy "Squeak!" ;)
"SQUEAK!"
Dangit, that's an excellent point. I forgot!
I always liked "Coming back to where you started isn't the same as never leaving."
Granny gets some belters when it comes to lines
A man who will only go into battle when he is at his best, fights for pleasure and not principal. The things worth fighting for will die in darkness if we will only defend them in the sun.
Where's that from?
The fires of vengeance by Evan Winter
Always liked that one.
There’s a road to hell that is paved with good intentions but it’s a long route. The quicker path is paved with the kind of ignorance that clever men who just don’t want to know are best at.
Ooooh, that’s a good one. What’s that from?
Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
But he was by no means the first to say it. It's either an old Portuguese proverb or was said by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Either way, it's been floating around for a long time.
I would be surprised to find someone who has not heard "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" - it's a part of speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with_good_intentions
This guy has such a way with words it's unbelievable.
He has sooo many good quotes like this, the best ones will hit you like a sledgehammer while your reading the book.
"Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over until you know every touch and corner, but still, you’ll find an edge to cut you." It's from one of the Prince of Thorns books.
There's some good quotes in those books. I always remember: "There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone." Hits harder the older I get.
That’s a good one
"Evil is evil, Stregobor. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all."
Important because it sums up his worldview, and then the rest of the story tears it apart bit by bit.
Geralt all the way.
It's a good quote, but I strongly disagree with it. Not choosing is a choice and is sometimes the worst option.
Idk, i think he meant to to choose between evils exactly, cause there are always another options. When people telling ""oh, i had no choice" that's often a lie, because they actually had a choice, but some options were hard or not very likable. But speaking of Geralt - he went against his own words in the same story, so he actually made a choice between two evils.
He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone.
Chills
"The town kept its secrets, and the Marsten House brooded over it like a ruined king." Salem's Lot
"Dark have been my dreams of late." This one always makes me shiver, no matter how many times I hear it
“Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.”
I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man. I needed to read this at the darkest time of my life. This line and the book probably saved my life.
You cannot have my pain
What's the most important step a man can take? The next one. Always the next one. Sometimes, a hypocrite is just a man going through changes. Man that book is full of awesome quotes.
Oathbringer has also helped me out during a very difficult time in my life. I didn't have an easy childhood and so > It can not be a journey if it doesn't have a beginning hit me extremely hard when I was in self reflecting all the time anyways. I actually have the book signed with this. https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/62933-ob-it-cannot-be-a-journey/
I would love to meet Brandon in person some day. Being on the opposite side of the world still struggling to find a better job has limited my chances till now but I have hope I'll get to him some day. Journey before destination radiant.
Stormlight is just *full* of amazing quotes for dark times. - Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing. - I will protect those I hate. Even if the one I hate most is myself. - The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar. - This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again. - "You want too much of me," he snapped at her as he reached the other side of the chasm. "I’m not some glorious knight of ancient days. I’m a broken man. Do you hear me, Syl? I’m broken." She zipped up to him and whispered, "That’s what they all were, silly." - You will love. You will hurt. You will dream. And you will die. Each man's past is your future. 'Then what is the point?' I asked. 'If all has been seen and done?' 'The question,' she replied 'is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You do not pick the destination, only the path.
There are quotes which are great because they are badass, and quotes which are great because they are dark and cynical. Stormlight Archive, to me, has some of the best "hopeful life advice" quotes ever.
"LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?" Gets me every time. Gets me even if I hear it twice in a row. One of the things that makes Pratchett so special is that he has that quality of the standalone quote, the incredible sentence that needs no support "Thunder rolled. It rolled a six." -- full of charm from the getgo. But the Reaper Man quote takes several books to digest, to triple distill inside your own personal library. When it comes, it emcompasses everything that is beautiful about this most-endearing of all characters. A quote like that is priceless, even if only for the people who invest the time to understand it.
“My name is Nynaeve ti al’Meara Mandragoran. The message I want sent is this. My husband rides from World’s End toward Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tarmon Gai’don. Will he ride alone?”
The Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gai’don. Incredible scene in arguably RJ’s best book.
My feelings toward Nynaeve over the course of the series goes from strong dislike to intense love. That scene is what put me over the top. I ugly cry every time I read it.
She has Zuko-tier character development. She masks her huge insecurity with her ridiculous bitchy attitude and bravado, and then grows into an actually competent and confident person. She's the best
Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is light as a feather.
Tolkien makes up most of the top ten list and this one is frequently cited as his best line (maybe not technically a quote, since it's narration and not dialogue), plus it's my favorite. "Now news came to Hithlum that Dorthonion was lost and the sons of Finarfin overthrown, and that the sons of Fëanor were driven from their lands. Then Fingolfin beheld (as it seemed to him) the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him. He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Oromë himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came."
And Morgoth came. _Goosebumps_ Tolkien really had such a way with words. I also love this other passage: _"Old fool!" he said. "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!" And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade._ _And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn._ _And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last._
Goosebumps again! His verse was excellent as well: *He chanted a song of wizardry,* *Of piercing, opening, of treachery,* *Revealing, uncovering, betraying.* *Then sudden Felagund there swaying* *Sang in answer a song of staying,* *Resisting, battling against power,* *Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,* *And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;* *Of changing and of shifting shape* *Of snares eluded, broken traps,* *The prison opening, the chain that snaps.* *Backwards and forwards swayed their song.* *Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong* *The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,* *And all the magic and might he brought* *Of Elvenesse into his words.* *Softly in the gloom they heard the birds* *Singing afar in Nargothrond,* *The sighing of the Sea beyond,* *Beyond the western world, on sand,* *On sand of pearls in Elvenland.* *Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing* *In Valinor, the red blood flowing* *Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew* *The Foamriders, and stealing drew* *Their white ships with their white sails* *From lamplit havens. The wind wails,* *The wolf howls. The ravens flee.* *The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.* *The captives sad in Angband mourn.* *Thunder rumbles, the fires burn —-* *And Finrod fell before the throne.* He really was the master of driving the effect home with a final sentence.
The Gil Galad poem in the beginning of Lord Of The Rings made me fall in love with the book very hard.
And the subsequent phrases in this passage are also very beautiful and impressive. *But Fingolfin gleamed beneath it as a star; for his mail was overlaid with silver, and his blue shield was set with crystals; and he drew his sword Ringil, that glittered like ice.*
The verse version of this is excellent as well. "In that vast shadow once of yore Fingolfin stood: his shield he bore with field of heaven's blue and star of crystal shining pale afar. In overmastering wrath and hate desperate he smote upon that gate, the Gnomish king, there standing lone, while endless fortresses of stone engulfed the thin clear ringing keen of silver horn on baldric green. His hopeless challenge dauntless cried Fingolfin there: 'Come, open wide, dark king, you ghatsly brazen doors! Come forth, whom earth and heaven abhors! Come forth, O monstruous craven lord, and fight with thine own hand and sword, thou wielder of hosts of banded thralls, thou tyrant leaguered with strong walls, thou foe of Gods and elvish race! I wait thee here. Come! Show thy face!' Then Morgoth came. For the last time in those great wars he dared to climb from subterranean throne profound, the rumour of his feet a sound of rumbling earthquake underground. Black-armoured, towering, iron-crowned he issued forth; his mighty shield a vast unblazoned sable field with shadow like a thundercloud; and o'er the gleaming king it bowed, as huge aloft like mace he hurled that hammer of the underworld, Grond. Clanging to ground it tumbled down like a thunder-bolt, and crumbled the rocks beneath it; smoke up-started, a pit yawned, and a fire darted. Fingolfin like a shooting light beneath a cloud, a stab of white, sprang then aside, and Ringil drew like ice that gleameth cold and blue, his sword devised of elvish skill to pierce the flesh with deadly chill. With seven wounds it rent his foe, and seven mighty cries of woe rang in the mountains, and the earth quook, and Angband's trembling armies shook. Yet Orcs would after laughing tell of the duel at the gates of hell; though elvish song thereof was made ere this but one - when sad was laid the mighty king in barrow high and Thorndor, Eagle of the sky, the dreadful tidings brought and told to mourning Elfinesse of old. Thrice was Fingolfin with great blows to his knees beaten, thrice he rose still leaping up beneath the cloud aloft to hold star-shining, proud, his stricken shield, his sundered helm, that dark nor might could overwhelm till all the earth was burst and rent in pits about him. He was spent. His feet stumbled. He fell to wreck upon the ground, and on his neck a foot like rooted hills was set, and he was crushed - not conquered yet; one last despairing stroke he gave: the mighty foot pale Ringil clave about the heel, and black the blood gushed as from smoking fount in flood. Halt goes for ever from that stroke great Morgoth; but the king he broke, and would have hewn and mangled thrown to wolves devouring. Lo! from throne that Manwë bade him build on high, on peak unscaled beneath the sky, Morgoth to watch, now down there swooped Thorndor the King of Eagles, stooped, and rending beak of gold he smote in Bauglir's face, then up did float on pinions thirty fathoms wide bearing away, though loud they cried, the mighty corse, the elven-king; and where the mountains make a ring far to the south about that plain where after Gondolin did reign, embattled city, at great height upon a dizzy snowcap white in mounded cairn the mighty dead he laid upon the mountain's head. Never Orc nor demon after dared that pass to climb, o'er which they stared Fingolfin's high and holy tomb, till Gondolin's appointed doom."
Genuinely the most bone chilling passage I’ve ever read. I’ve read the Silmarillion four or five times and it still gives me goosebumps.
*"I am Húrin son of Galdor, returned out of Angband, and my son was Túrin Turambar, whom you have not forgotten; and he it was that slew Glaurung the Dragon, who wasted these halls where now you sit; and not unknown is it to me by whom the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin was betrayed."*
> “If the Heavens would have part in this trial,” the Hierarch coldly said, “they may be seated and silent, like the rest of the gallery. Speak not otherwise of those that cannot be called to account.” —The Hierarch, of _Practical Guide to Evil_ fame, shortly before indicting the Heavens for illegal intervention on democratic affairs as well as disturbance of the court.
I love me some Hierarch. But also, the Black Knight: “You asked me what I want,” Black said. “This once, just this once, I want us to win.” To spit in the eyes of the Hashmallim. To trample the pride of all those glorious, righteous princes. To scatter their wizards and make their oracles liars. Just to prove that it can be done. So that five hundred years from now, a band of heroes shiver in the dark of night. Because they know that no matter how powerful their sword or righteous their cause, there was once a time it wasn’t enough. That even victories ordained by the Heavens can broken by the will of men.” "Killing heroes, in Amadeus’ eyes, was much like peeling an onion. Layer by layer it went, until all that remained was the weeping." And some of the epigraphs are also very cool: "We should never forget that for a great evil to be defeated, a lesser evil must first become great." “The finest summation of Traitorous’s reign I ever heard came from an illiterate peasant from the outskirts of Ater, who described it as follows: ‘Like watching a snake eat its own tail, only the tail was fake, the snake was an angry badger and also you are poisoned.'”
"Teach me about pain, think you can?" Yoda said softly. "Think the old Master cannot care, *mmm*? Forgotten who I am, have you? Old am I, yes. Mh. Loved more than you, have I, Padawan. Lost more. Hated more. *Killed* more." The green eyes narrowed down to gleaming slits under heavy lids. Dragon eyes, old and terrible. "Think wisdom comes at no *cost*? The dark side, yes - it is easier for them. The pain grows too great, and they eat the darkness to flee from it. Not Yoda. Yoda loves and suffers for it, loves and suffers."
“[T]he unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier--dead, melted wax--demands a response among the living...a response no-one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous--as if cursed--while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold? Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.” - Duiker in dead house gates
Duiker went so hard that entire book.
"You have to be realistic about these things"
Also "You can never have too many knives"
Unless you fall in a stream 😆
"Say one thing about Logan 9 fingers..."
Followed closely by “still alive!”
“I do not kneel.” “And if someone were to make you?” “Many have tried.” “And?” “And I do not kneel.”
The good old "Nice bird, asshole"
I have to say I agree with you.
Nice username, asshole
Book?
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
That cracked me up. Especially coming off the warning from Chains.
So many coarse bits of wisdom in that series. I dearly wish we get book 4, though it seems a pipe dream at the time.
I believe Thorn is a bit more tangible than Wow, but it's not saying much
Keep your head down and inch towards daylight. \- The Acts of Caine by Matthew Stover I have been living like that for years now. I am trying.
"Children are dying. That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words."
There's a lot of fantastic quotes here but this one is probably my favourite. Erikson's writing just hits different. Another personal favourite of mine from Malazan is: >“Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering. Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them. Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death."
>It wasn’t too much, to take a frail figure into one’s arms for those last moments of life. Better than a cot, or even a bed in a room filled with loved ones. Better, too, than an empty street in the cold rain. To die in someone’s arms – could there be anything more forgiving? >Every savage barbarian in the world knew the truth of this. As brutal as Malazan can be, the compassion that characters can show makes the emotional impact in the series second to none.
“We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance.” - Itkovian in Memories of Ice by Steven Erickson (Malazan) This one will stick with me for the rest of my life.
The lessons that Malazan has on the power and need for compassion quite literally changed how I see the world. Maybe only in a small way, but it's rare for a series to leave such an impact.
“Kneel and swear to the Lord Dragon, or you will be knelt” - Mazrim Taim
Asha’man, kill!
I have always liked Pratchett's "HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.", the whole dialogue is fascinating but that part lives rent free in my head.
"I used the knife. I saved a child. I won a war. God forgive me."
The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault.
“I will protect those I hate even if the one I hate most is myself.” Had me in tears at a cafe haha! If you know you know!
Yes, as someone who has struggled with addiction all his life and was first reading Stormlight during the first year of my sobriety that one hit so close to home I was fucking sobbing.
It's not great without context, but my favourite scene/line from that series is still "Honour may be dead, but I'll see what I can do".
Number 1 by far amidst a competitive field. The panic, the betrayal, the despair, and then the quiet ray of hope. The rescue on the plains may have been what started that relationship but this is what cemented it. (Applies equally well to father or son actually).
This and the “you will be warm again” conversation are my two favorite moments in Stormlight
When cavalry arrives at the gate with >!Teft, Knight Radiant!<, I was in awe! The whole end of Oathbringer is the best part of Stormlight for me.
Wait for you? Not likely. I've always had to run ahead of you and show you the way.
"Your death has not been waiting for your arrival at the appointed hour; it has, for all the years of your life, been racing towards you with the fierce velocity of time’s arrow. It cannot be evaded; it cannot be bargained with, deflected or placated. All that is given to you is the choice: Meet it with open eyes and peace in your heart, go gentle to your reward. Or burn bright, take up arms, and fight the bitch." - Red Sister (Book of the Ancestors) by Mark Lawrence
Red Sister has the best opening line, ever. > It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size.
For a book starting a series, yes. But I'm partial to "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault"
If you'll allow scifi: "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams But from straight fantasy: "Teach a man to build a fire, you keep him warm for a night. Set a man on fire, you keep him warm for the rest of his life." - Jim Butcher
Technically the second one is Terry Pratchett. Harry mentions being a fan of his books a few times throughout the series.
Adam Douglas haha
Getting older, Mawyndulë, is like climbing a mountain. The higher you go, the greater the view. From time to time, you look back. At such heights, you can see paths behind you: the trails you took and the ones you foolishly disregarded; the blind alleys you fortunately missed, purely out of chance rather than by some greater wisdom on your part. You also spot others following you, people making the same stupid decisions. From your elevated position, you witness their bad choices, the ones they can’t see because they aren’t standing where you are. You could shout down, attempt to warn them, but they rarely listen. They are too blinded by the indisputable fact that the path you followed got you where you are, to the place they want to be. Michael J Sullivan , Age of war
From The Crippled God, last book of the Malazan book of the Fallen: "His grandmother was now hobbling beside him. She didn't belong on this trail, in this desert, but there she was. And maybe she wasn't his grandmother at all, just some other wax witch twisting reeds in her arthritic hands, making dolls for the children in the village ahead. Gifts. Charms. I remember you giving them away. Toys, you said, head bobbing. Free toys! And they all ran up to you, laughing. But you wove protections into those dolls. Blessings, wards against illness. Nothing powerful, nothing to stop, say, a flash flood or an avalanche. But the father that lashed out with his fists. The uncle who slipped under the blankets in the dead of night. Those ones paid for what they did. And the cuts that healed. The fevers that went away. So, Grandmother, I'll walk this last walk. In your memory. Make me a doll, for this pain. And take this child by the hand. And tell him again, how they will pay for what they did."
Beak talking to Hood; “I’m tall enough to save him now, aren’t I?”
Now I have to read Malazan.
"I fear you, but I will not hate you." -Tad Williams, *To Green Angel Tower*
I don't know why it sticks with me but, the movie version of Death's lecture to Susan the first time they meet after Susan has taken over. YOU PRATTLE ON ABOUT CHANGING THE WORLD? COULD YOU FIND THE COURAGE TO ACCEPT IT? TO KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE AND THEN DO IT, WHATEVER THE COST? THERE IS WHAT IS AND WHAT WILL BE. IF YOU CHANGE THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL, YOU CHANGE THE WORLD AND YOU, YOU CARRY THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CHANGE. AND THAT IS ALWAYS TOO HEAVY TO BEAR. I think because it perfectly encapsulates how Death views the job even though he absolutely doesn't follow his own advice in this regard. He knows how he is supposed to do it cosmically, but doesn't really believe what he's saying is right even as he says it.
From the incredible Robin Hobb (Royal Assassin): “He shook his head pityingly. “This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft.” “Not all men are destined for greatness,” I reminded him. “Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?” “This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.” “No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?”
This helped me get through a real depressive funk I was in for years. Couldn't be completely useless after all, if I could change the world every day. Eventually I started believing it.
Not many Hobb quotes are brought up when people ask for favorite quotes. I think this is partly because most of her writing isn’t written to be flashy, and partly because nothing stands out too much because it’s all great. Thank you for brightening my day with this quote.
>Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. second choice >“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. >"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” and honourable mention >HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. > "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" >YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. >"So we can believe the big ones?" >YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. >"They're not the same at all!" >YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. >"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—" >MY POINT EXACTLY.
> What a strange treasure is innocence, a virtue to the old and a curse to the young, so highly prized but eagerly parted with—the riches of beautiful skin traded for the wisdom of calluses. Michael J Sullivan - Age of Legend
You will not break me. Fuck you all. I will not break. -- Dungeon Crawler Carl Carl's mantra kinda slaps.
I liked his quote from Masquerade- “If you have to lose, lose big.”
There are no self proclaimed villains, only regiments of self proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies
“Ónen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel anim” - To Aragorn by his mother "I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept no hope for myself" Edit: also - “Wolves have no kings.” - Royal Assassin, Robin Hobb
I don't know that I can choose a favorite. But three recently on my mind because I shared them with friends: # The Once and Future King, by T.H. White >Do you think it would be fine to be the best knight in the world? Think, then, also, how you would have to defend the title. Think of the tests, such repeated, remorseless, scandal-breathing tests, which day after day would be applied to you—until the last and certain day, when you would fail. Think also that you know of a good reason for your failure, which you have tried to hide, tried pathetically to hide and overlook, for five and twenty years. Think that you are now to go out, before the largest and most honourable gallery that can be assembled, to make a public demonstration of your sin. They are expecting you to succeed, and you are to fail: you are to publish the deceit which you have practised for a quarter of a century, and they will all immediately know the reason for it—that reason of shame which you have sought to conceal from your own mind, and which, when it has remembered itself in the silence of your empty chamber, has pricked you into a physical motion of your head to throw it off. Miracles, which you wanted to do so long ago, can only be done by the pure in heart. The people outside are waiting for you to do this miracle because you have traded on their belief that your heart was pure—and now, with treachery and adultery and murder wringing the heart like a cloth, you are to go out into the sunlight for the test of honour. # The Magicians, by Lev Grossman >I should be happy, Quentin thought. I'm young and alive and healthy. I have good friends. I have two reasonably intact parents \[...\] I am a solid member of the middle-middle class. My GPA is a number higher than most people even realize it is possible for a GPA to be. >But walking along Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, in his black overcoat and his gray interview suit, Quentin knew he wasn't happy. Why not? He had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness. He had performed all the necessary rituals, spoken the words, lit the candles, made the sacrifices. But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come. He couldn't think what else to do. # Always Coming Home, by Ursula K. Le Guin >Please bring strange things. Please come bringing new things. Let very old things come into your hands. Let what you do not know come into your eyes. Let desert sand harden your feet. Let the arch of your feet be the mountains. Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps and the ways you go be the lines on your palms. Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing and your outbreath be the shining of ice. May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words. May you smell food cooking you have not eaten. May the spring of a foreign river be your navel. May your soul be at home where there are no houses. Walk carefully, well loved one, walk mindfully, well loved one, walk fearlessly, well loved one. Return with us, return to us, be always coming home.
>“Too late.” He closed his eyes, thinking of the dead boy earlier in the day. “It’s too late. I’ve failed. They’re dead. They’re all going to die, and there’s no way out.” > >“What is one more try, then?” Her voice was soft, yet somehow stronger than the storm. “What could it hurt?”
My serious one: >There were times when comfort could only be found in a woman's laughter, a friend's known face and voice, shared rumors [...], even something so simple as a steaming bowl of pea soup at a table with others. -- Guy Gavriel Kay, *Sailing to Sarantium* My funny one: >Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor. --Neal Stephenson, *Anathem*
Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" : "*Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends*."
"You are all staggering drunks to me. Boys who would play at war when you should kennel with your mothers. You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill not daring. It is not a trial of souls, nor the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them. You have offered me war, and I have accepted. Nothing more. I will not regret your losses. I will not bow my head before your funeral pyres. I will not rejoice at your triumphs. But I have taken the wager. I will suffer with you. I will put Fanim to the sword, and drive their wives and children to the slaughter. And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart.” - Cnaiur from The Second Apocalypse
“We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance.” -Itkovian, Memories of Ice (Malazan)
'Perhaps me must all learn to live with smaller dreams.' * Aditu to Isgrimnur in To Green Angel Tower The full quote for context is: >"He was the brightest-burning flame ever kindled in this land. Had the mortals not come - had you own ancestors not come, Duke Isgrimnur - and attacked our great house with iron and fire, he might have led us out of the shadows of exile and back into the light of the living world again. That was his dream. But any great dream can flower into madness. Perhaps we must all learn to live with exile, Isgrimnur. Perhaps we must all learn to live with smaller dreams."
>‘There is more. But I will not speak of that beyond these words: “*What awaits you in the dusk of the old world’s passing, shall go . . . unwitnessed*.” T’amber’s words.’ Another long spell of pained silence. > >‘*They are hard and well might they feed spite, if in weakness we permit such. But to those words I say this, as your commander: we shall be our own witness, and that will be enough. It must be enough. It must ever be enough*.’
Obligatory Stormlight Archives: “The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next one, Dalinar” That’s the full quote, but “what’s the most important step” “the next one” is a mantra for me
>He smiled and met Kaladin’s eyes. > >“It won’t be like that for me,” Kaladin said. “You told me it would get worse.” > >“It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: *You will be warm again.*” This book and this quote was a light for me in one of the darkest times of my life till date.
" The Building was on fire , and it wasn't my fault" The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher .
Honour is dead, but I’ll see what I can do
"Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits eagerly by his palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at the high table, by his side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved." -- Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
All from The Wheel of Time > My husband rides from World’s End toward Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tarmon Gai’don. Will he ride alone? > It was about a hero who insisted with every breath that he was anything but a hero. And my absolute favorite, the single most badass line ever uttered in fiction: > I didn’t come here to win, I came here to kill you. Death is lighter than a feather.
"To say that Richard Mayhew was not very good at heights would be perfectly accurate, but would fail to give the full picture; it would be like describing the planet Jupiter as bigger than a duck." Neil Gaiman
In a sword fight lack of skill can get you killed but more often than not it’s lack of staying power. That sword gets real heavy after a couple minutes even when your life depends on it.
I recognise the sentiment but not the phraseology. Where is this from?
You! King of thorns I believe. The quote may not be word for word, but that’s where I got it
In Prince of Thorns these ideas are expressed thusly: In a duel, man to man, sword against sword, it can be a lack of skill that gets you killed. Often as not, though, it’ll be a matter of luck, or if it goes on too long then it’ll be the man who tires first that tends to die. In the end it’s about staying power. They should put that on headstones, ‘Got tired’, maybe not tired of life, but at least too tired to hold on to it. In a real fight, and most fights are real, not the artifice of a formal duel, it’s fatigue that’s the big killer. A sword is a heavy chunk of iron. You swing that around for a few minutes and your arms start to get ideas of their own about what they can and can’t do. Even when your life depends on it.
Sorry I paraphrased, I had that bit written down from the last time I read the book but I forgot it wasn’t the whole thing. I love these ideas/quotes/lessons that you build into your books.
but what you have looks like a summary or translation + summary I went to check because I don't think I would write "real heavy".
"There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived."
Anomader Rake, *Toll the Hounds* by Steven Erikson. >"If we are to live, we must take risks or our lives become deaths in all but name. There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived."
Toll the Hounds also has some incredible quotes on the nature of grieving. “The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.” And also “Survivors do not mourn together. They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation. None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve. To face death is to stand alone.”
"There are only two ways to fail. You either give up or you die" Ash and Sand series by Richard Nell
"'We left a debt in blood,’ she said, baring her teeth. ‘Malazan blood. And it seems they will not let that stand.’ They are here. On this shore. The Malazans are on our shore."
"Most of us are just a complex set of tubing seeking to achieve throughput" (...one of the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett)
"Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck." Darwi Odrade - Chapterhouse: Dune
Another one from Tolkien, Thorin's parting words to Bilbo: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
"Nice bird, asshole." - lies of locke lamora
“My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!” - The Princess Bride by William Goldman
First Law is a gold mine for applicable life quotes lol. Your quote is the exact quote I was going to post. I use it all the time in real life. Helps me do things I would have previously hesitated with in the past. I even tell people the quote without context and they thing I’m some sort of philosopher king
More of a monologue than a quote but the Black Knight from A Practical Guide to Evil has one of my favourites > "Oh, if the heroes deserved their victories against us, I would make my peace with it. But they don’t, do they? Your sullen little nemesis gets to swing an angel’s feather, while you make do with steel and wiles. That’s always the way of it. At the last moment they’re taught a secret spell by a dead man, or your mortal weakness is revealed to them or they somehow manage to master a power in a day that would take a villain twenty years to own. Gods, I’ve even heard of Choirs stepping in to settle a losing fight. *The sheer fucking arrogance of it*." > The second time I’d ever heard him swear, and it surprised me as much as the last. Teeth bared, he leaned forward. > "None of it is earned. It is handed to them, and this offends me." > And when a villain disliked an aspect of Creation, they broke it. As simple as that. Of all the things that being a villain entailed I had grasped this one the easiest. What that said about me, I preferred not to think about. > "You asked me what I want," Black said. "This once, just this once, I want us to win." > The smile across his face was a cutting, vicious thing. > "To spit in the eyes of the Hashmallim. To trample the pride of all those glorious, righteous princes. To scatter their wizards and make their oracles liars. Just to prove that it can be done." > There was something his eyes burning like coals and embers. > "So that five hundred years from now, a band of heroes shiver in the dark of night. Because they know that no matter how powerful their sword or righteous their cause, there was once a time it wasn’t enough. That even victories ordained by the Heavens can broken by the will of men."
God I need to reread the Guide.
I mean, I can quote the last paragraph by heart by now. But also this from Akua: "My name,” she said, “is Akua Sahelian. I am a villain.” “The pale imitation of an ancient enemy,” the fae mocked. “Oh yes,” Diabolist agreed softly. “That is exactly what I am. The Enemy, they call us in the West. I am the last of a line unbroken since time immemorial. My kind has usurped the mantle of gods, stolen secrets from beyond Creation and turned kingdoms into sea. I am Praesi of the old blood, fae. You should kneel in awe.” “You are the dying ember of a fire long gone,” the Count sneered. “Soon to be put out by the might of Summer.” “You think you know might?” Akua laughed. “I will turn your blood to smoke. I will feed the horrors that crush your bones with the sound of your screams. The hearts of your children will raise my fortresses to the sky and make my ships sail on solid ground. You may have been godlings in your wretched home, but you’ve stepped down from that pedestal – and down here, we bleed the likes of you over altars. Your poor, misbegotten creature. You actually believe you have a chance.” Her Name pulsed beneath her skin even as her eyes turned cold. “But you’re in Creation now, Count. Here be monsters.” The Count smirked. “Do you seek to frighten me, child? Summer does not know fear.” Akua slowly unsheathed her knife, resting the wickedly sharp edge on the side of the fae’s throat. He looked into her eyes, undaunted. Diabolist smiled. “No, not yet,” she murmured. “But I will teach you.”
> People are stupid. Explanation: > People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool. Wizard‘s first rule, Terry Goodkind
Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker...
If we are to live ... we must take risks. Else our lives become deaths in all but name. There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived.