Robert Jordan
You have to have talent to some extent - I certainly hope I have talent - but you have to have luck as well. Once you get that first shot, that will get you noticed for the rest of your books and that will give the rest of your books a better chance.Collection: Hope
Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.
I think that quite often you can only find a choice between bad and worse. But I think it's worth making the effort, and I like to expose my characters to that sort of situation.
I'm not certain that I draw from any one culture more than others. Many myths and legends of many different cultures are really the same story when you get to the heart of it. They are often cultural cautionary tales about how we should behave and how we should live.
You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway.Collection: Lying
Caution once forgotten could be forgotten once too often.Collection: Forgotten
Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.Collection: Forgiveness
Life is a dream from which we all must wake before we can dream again.Collection: Inspirational
The rose petal floats on water. The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death.Collection: Water
We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.Collection: Wish
Never think I have abandoned you. When the sun shines on you, it is my smile. When you hear the breeze stir through the apple blossoms, it is my whisper that I love you. My love is yours forever.Collection: Love You
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.Collection: Adversity
What can't be changed must be endured.Collection: Changed
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.Collection: Memories
Most of those we call heroes only did what they had to do.Collection: Hero
The men in my family are strong because the women in my family kill and eat the weak ones.Collection: Strong
Hardness shatters; strength endures.Collection: Endure
Do not trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.Collection: Trouble
When you wish for so long that you could hear something, and then suddenly, with no warning, you do, it is like a lightning strike and rain on parched ground at the same time. You're stunned, but you cannot hear enough.Collection: Rain
We all make our limits, and we set them further out than we have any right.Collection: Limits
Take what you can have. Rejoice in what you can save, and do not mourn your losses for too long.Collection: Long
There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet.Collection: Real Men
If you pursue two hares, both will escape you.Collection: Two
Sometimes, pain is all that lets you know you're alive.Collection: Pain
You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making. If you die, I will not survive you long.Collection: Flower
Hammer the iron that lies on your anvil instead of daydreaming about working silver.Collection: Lying
I will hate the man you choose because he isn't me, and love him if he makes you smile.Collection: Love
If you can't hide what you are going to do, do it so everybody thinks you are a fool.Collection: Thinking
Kill a man who needs killing, and sometimes others pay for it. The question is, was it worth doing it anyway? There's always a balance, you know. Good and evil. Light and Shadow. We would not be human if there wasn't a balance.Collection: Men
The wheel of a man's life. No mercy. No pity.Collection: Men
Prophecy is most dangerous when you try to make it happen... The Pattern weaves itself around you, but when you try to weave it, even you cannot hold it.Collection: Trying
When the honey's out of the comb, there's no putting it back.Collection: Honey
An arrow may not be a shocklance, yet it can still kill you.Collection: Arrows
I will hate the man you choose because he is not me, and love him if he makes you smile. No woman deserves the sure knowledge of widow’s black as her brideprice, you least of all.Collection: Time
Men! Too blind to see what a stone could see, and too stubborn to be trusted to think for themselves.Collection: Men
Never kiss a girl whose brothers have knife scars.Collection: Girl
I have never known anyone else," Egwene said to him, "who will work so hard to avoid hard work, Matrim Cauthon.Collection: Hard Work
An open sack hides nothing, And an open door hides little, but an open man is surely hiding something. lini is quoted by Nynaeve.Collection: Men
Why didn't you guess this would happen?" Elayne demanded. He looked at her, expressionless. One side of his mouth twitched up, then he pulled his hat down, shading his eyepatch. "Light," Elayne said. "You knew. You spent this whole week planning with us, and you knew the entire time you'd throw it out with the dishwater.Collection: Light
Tonight you will eat fish. Tomorrow, you may die.Collection: Tonight
Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are.Collection: Men
Two hands. One to destroy, the other to save. Which had he lost?Collection: Hands
Pessimism, she is a fond friend of yours, yes?" - That's uncalled for. I barely know her. Mere acquaintances, at best.Collection: Pessimism
If wishes were wings, pigs would fly.Collection: Pigs
Young men can be impetuous, young men can be rush, young men can be fools, but the Car'a'carn cannot let himself be a young man.Collection: Men
Clutch the bramble and you will be pricked.Collection: Clutch
There's no time for winking at the men when you're busy bailing the boat.Collection: Time
You trouble me so, Rand al'Thor. Light, sometimes I think the Creator made you just to trouble me.Collection: Thinking
When there are fish heads and blood in the water, you don't need to see the silverpike to know they are there.Collection: Blood
First things first; take care of what can be done now before worrying too long over what might never be.Collection: Long