David Eddings
I wrote a novel for my degree, and I'm very happy I didn't submit that to a publisher. I sympathize with my professors who had to read it.Collection: Graduation
The unfortunate thing about working for yourself is that you have the worst boss in the world. I work every day of the year except at Christmas, when I work a half day.Collection: Christmas
I get up at an unholy hour in the morning my work day is completed by the time the sun rises. I have a slightly bad back which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.Collection: Morning
I taught in a small teacher's college for three or four years, at which point all the administrators got a pay raise and the teaching faculty didn't.Collection: Teacher
I'm a storyteller, not a prophet. I'm just interested in a good story.
Reed College required a thesis for a Bachelor's degree. Normally a Bachelor's is sort of like being stamped 'Prime US Beef.' They just walk you through, hand out the diplomas and you fill in your name later on.
When they ran out of cadre men they gave me my very own platoon and said, 'Here are 63 men, try to keep as many of them alive as you possibly can.' That was one of the more harrowing experiences of my life.
I've fallen back on this periodically, although I must say that getting out of the grocery business ranked right up there with getting out of the army as one of the happier experiences of my life.
All social workers want is to get everyone involved in a programme. Because a programme provides full employment for three generations of social workers. And they mess up.
Call it my little gesture toward social conscience, but I like to think I'm teaching a certain number of people to read. Now that sounds pretentious!
I hesitate to predict whether this theory is true. But if the general opinion of Mankind is optimistic then we're in for a period of extreme popularity for science fiction.
If the general opinion is pessimistic, fantasy is going to hold its own.
This is terrible, when a writer is bored by his own work, but it was a real bomb and had reached the point where I couldn't even stand to look at it any more.
I have an unconscious burglar living in my mind: If I read something, it's mine. I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.
I'm never going to be in danger of getting the Nobel Prize for literature.
I have a slightly bad back, which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.
I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.
I have an unconscious burglar living in my mind: If I read something, it's mine.
Once you've decided that something's absolutely true, you've closed your mind on it, and a closed mind doesn't go anywhere. Question everything. That's what education's all about.Collection: Mind
No day in which you learn something is a complete loss.Collection: Inspirational
We're living in momentous times, Garion. The events of a thousand years and more have all focused on these very days. The world, I'm told, is like that. Centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again." I think that if I had my choice, I'd prefer one of those quiet centuries," Garion said glumly. Oh, no," Silk said, his lips drawing back in a ferretlike grin. "Now's the time to be alive - to see it all happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure.Collection: Adventure
One of the less attractive aspects of human nature is our tendency to hate the people we haven't treated very well; it's much easier than accepting guilt. If we can convince ourselves that the people we betrayed or enslaved were subhuman monsters in the first place, then our guilt isn't nearly so black as we secretly know that it is. Humans are very, very good at shifting blame and avoiding guilt.Collection: Betrayal
I've looked at the world for quite a few years now and I've found that if I don't laugh, I'll probably end up crying." - Prince Kheldar of DrasniaCollection: Years
Now's the time to be alive - to see it all happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure.Collection: Adventure
When love is involved no sacrifice is too great.Collection: Sacrifice
Keep working. Keep trying. Keep believing. You still might not make it, but at least you gave it your best shot. If you don’t have calluses on your soul, this isn’t for you. Take up knitting instead.Collection: Believe
As long as I know that my motives are good, I'm Seldom very concerned with the opinions of others. -Mandorallen, Baron of Vo Mandor.Collection: Long
As soon as somebody falls in love, all the wits seem to dribble out of the bottom of his head.Collection: Falling In Love
But there's a world beyond what we can see and touch, and that world lives by its own laws. What may be impossible in this very ordinary world is very possible there, and sometimes the boundaries between the two worlds disappear, and then who can say what is possible and impossible?Collection: Possible And Impossible
My Lord, I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offense against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fir which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornement for a human face. Is it possible that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat? -MandorallenCollection: Mother
When ignorance is bliss, there's folly in wisdom.Collection: Ignorance
The only reason there's such a thing as a morning in the first place is to keep night and afternoon from bumping into each other. -KheldarCollection: Morning
...only in the surrender of the light could the darkness prevail.Collection: Light
Ordinary men live in fear all the time. Didn't you know that? We're afraid of the weather, we're afraid of powerful men, we're afraid of the night and the monsters that lurk in the dark, we're afraid of growing old and of dying. Sometimes we're even afraid of living. Ordinary men are afraid almost every minute of their lives.Collection: Powerful
Will you never grow up?" "I doubt it, and I certainly hope not.Collection: Growing Up
Wise are you, indeed... to know what is not possible.Collection: Wise
When you know that something's going to happen, you'll start trying to see signs of its approach in just about everything. Always try to remember that most of the things that happen in this world aren't signs. They happen because they happen, and their only real significance lies in normal cause and effect. You'll drive yourself crazy if you start trying to pry the meaning out of every gust of wind or rain squall. I'm not denying that there might actually be a few signs that you won't want to miss. Knowing the difference is the tricky part.Collection: Lying
Nothing that ever happens is so unimportant that it doesn't change things.Collection: Happens
Consistency is the defense of a small mindCollection: Consistency
Now do you see why war irritates me? It's always the same. A lot of people get killed, but in the end, the whole thing is settled at the conference table. The notion of having the conference first doesn't seem to occur to people.Collection: War
We're all entitled to a little stupidity now and then.Collection: Stupidity
Everything is idiocy if you choose to look at it in the proper perspective.Collection: Perspective
Don't wrench your shoulder out of its socket trying to pat yourself on the back," Beldin said sourly.Collection: Trying
As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.Collection: Secret
I didn't particularly feel like being arrested, so I argued with the soldiers a bit. Several of them died during the argument - those things happen once in a while. Unfortunately, one of the casualties was Taur Urgas' oldest son. The king of the Murgos took it personally. He's very narrow-minded sometimes. - SilkCollection: Kings
Events are like horses. Sometimes they run away. After they've run for a while, though, they'll start to walk again. Then there'll be a time to put everything together.Collection: Running
The old man was peering intently at the shelves. 'I'll have to admit that he's a very competent scholar.' Isn't he just a librarian?' Garion asked, 'somebody who looks after books?' That's where all the rest of scholarship starts, Garion. All the books in the world won't help you if they're just piled up in a heap.Collection: Book
It's only a story, isn't it?"... "Who's to say what's only a story and what's truth disguised as a story?Collection: Stories
All I knew was that I would die if he sent me away. He shrugged. You can cut a man’s heart out with a shrug, did you know that?Collection: Heart
It's gaudy, ugly, and in terribly bad taste. It does, however, suit my personality almost perfectly.Collection: Personality