It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because.That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
Love, child! What else? You will find it and lose it, again and again. And with each finding and each loss, you will become more than before. What you make of it is yours to choose.
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel's Scion |
All knowledge is worth having.
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel's Dart |
Love as thou wilt.
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel's Chosen |
There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire.
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel's Dart |
Even a stunted tree reaches for sunlight.
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel's Scion |
"Scratch any cynic, and you’ll find a disappointed idealist."
George Carlin |
“Years ago, I had a teacher who taught me that all ways lead to the Way,” I said slowly, thinking. “That there is a great truth behind all the truths of the world, and the faces of the gods are masks that may be changed at will. Mayhap Naamah is not so foreign as you think.”
Jacqueline Carey - Naamah's Blessing |
"I love you more than I'll ever let on... And that's a fault of mine I'm working on..."
Carbon Leaf - Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat |
Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car."
Laurence J. Peter |
It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart, and some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you’re lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
"Should I weep and tear my hair? Curse Tehlu and his angels? Beat my chest? No. That is low drama.” His expression softened somewhat. “I appreciate your concern, but this is just a piece of the story, not even the worst piece, and I am not telling it to garner sympathy.” Kvothe pushed his chair back from the table and came to his feet. “Besides, all of this happened long ago.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Time is the great healer, and so on.”
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
Even the best dog will bite that has been kicked enough.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
"I must point out that there is no question of belief, but of experience. Religious belief is absolute. It is indisputable. You can only say that you have never had such an experience, and your opponent will say: 'Sorry, I have.' And there your discussion will come to an end."
Carl Jung |
Besides, anger can keep you warm at night, and wounded pride can spur a man to wondrous things.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
I won’t lie to you. There were times late at night when I lay sleepless and desperately alone in my narrow bunk in the Mews, times when I was choked with a sorrow so endless and empty that I thought it would smother me.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.”
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
“Isn’t that the way of the world?” she said. “We want the sweet things, but we need the unpleasant ones.”
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
Names are the shape of the world, and a man who can speak them is on the road to power.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind |
You have a stone in your heart, and some days it’s so heavy there is nothing to be done. But you don’t have to be alone for it.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
A heavy purse makes for a light heart.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
All the truth in the world is held in stories, you know.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
Secrets of the heart are different. They are private and painful, and we want nothing more than to hide them from the world. They do not swell and press against the mouth. They live in the heart, and the longer they are kept, the heavier they become. Teccam claims it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart. Any fool will spit out poison, he says, but we hoard these painful treasures. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
When you love something, you have to make sure it loves you back, or you’ll bring about no end of trouble chasing it.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
"A story is like a nut," Vashet said. "A fool will swallow it whole and choke. A fool will throw it away, thinking it of little worth." She smiled. "But a wise woman finds a way to crack the shell and eat the meat inside."
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
Sometimes the best help a person can find is helping someone else.
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
"There’s looking and there’s looking," Fela said to Simmon. "When some men look at you it’s a greasy thing. It makes you want to have a bath. With other men it’s nice. It helps you know you’re beautiful."
Patrick Rothfuss - Wise Man's Fear |
"In the end," she recalled in a letter written years later, "I decided that it was more important to laugh than eat."
Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter |
The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
"I believe, Eragon, that you are full of love and that you are looking for one who will reciprocate your affection. No shame exists in that."
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
Those whom we love are often the most alien to us.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
History provides us with numerous examples of people who were convinced that they were doing the right thing and committed terrible crimes because of it.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
When you’re in pain, nothing else can exist. Not thought. Not emotion. Only the drive to escape the pain. When it’s strong enough, the Obliterator strips us of everything that makes us who we are, until we’re reduced to creatures less than animals, creatures with a single desire and goal: escape.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
The true agony of war isn’t being wounded yourself, it’s having to watch those you care about being hurt.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
Perhaps no one religion contains all of the truth of the world. Perhaps every religion contains fragments of the truth and it is our responsibility to identify those fragments and piece them together.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
To know that you were with one who cared for you, and who understood every fiber of your being, and who would not abandon you in even the most desperate of circumstances, that was the most precious relationship a person could have.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
"Sé ono waíse ilia." May you be happy.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
The warrior who can adapt the easiest to the unexpected is the warrior who will live the longest.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
He liked the idea of one’s body providing food for a tree that might live for hundreds of years more. If he had to die, he decided that he would want an apple tree planted over him, so that his friends and family could eat the fruit born of his body.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
It’s impossible to go through life unscathed. Nor should you want to. By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishments.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
Fear is good in small amounts, but when it is a constant, pounding companion, it cuts away at who you are and makes it hard to do what you know is right.
Christopher Paolini - Inheritance |
Being a friend means you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, and I’ll still be your friend.
Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule |
When he had been confronted with fear in the past, he had learned to control it. There was strength in control.
Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule |
"It is the first responsibility of a friend to provide a shoulder to cry on.”
Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule |
"I know the good in you. I believe in you. I do know that you have within you what you must to succeed. There will be times when you doubt yourself. Do not give up. Remember then that I believe in you, that I know you can accomplish what you must."
Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule |
Reality isn’t relevant. Perception is everything.
Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule |
Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash |
All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us.
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash |
In many Creation myths, to name a thing is to create it.
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash |
Any man who has seen the face of death knows better than to seek him out a second time.
Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter |
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares.
Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter |
His mother had been his soul mate. She had shown him love and encouragement since the day he was born. She had read to him all those nights, always holding the book in her left hand and gently twirling a finger through his dark hair with the right as he fell asleep on her lap. Hers had been the first face to greet him when he entered the world. He hadn’t cried. He had simply looked at her and smiled. She was love, and light. And she was gone.
Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter |
"Without death," he answered, "life is meaningless. It is a story that can never be told. A song that can never be sung. For how would one finish it?"
Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter |
Life goes on even at the worst of times, and there are some ways no one ever grows up, no matter how long they live or how many lifetimes.”
Jacqueline Carey - Dark Currents: Agent of Hel |
There are worse things in the world than heartbreak. Finding that out is a rite of passage.
Jacqueline Carey - Dark Currents: Agent of Hel |
In and of itself, passion is no sin. It is deeds that matter in the end.
Jacqueline Carey - Dark Currents: Agent of Hel |
Despair is a passion unto itself.
Jacqueline Carey - Dark Currents: Agent of Hel |
All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |
As soon as something becomes impossible it slipslides out of belief entirely, whether it’s true or not.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |
There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |
Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |
Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |
Shadow said, "Are you a god as well?" Whiskey Jack shook his head. "I’m a culture hero," he said. "We do the same shit gods do, we just screw up more and nobody worships us. They tell stories about us, but they tell the ones that make us look bad along with the ones where we came out fairly okay."
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |
I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |
He wondered whether home was a thing that happened to a place after a while, or if it was something that you found in the end, if you simply walked and waited and willed it long enough.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods |