All legends have a base in fact.
Hold on to your dreams, Kiall. They are more important than you realise.
I am a stranger. You do not need to lie to me or pretend. Only with friends do you need masks...
Death haunts everyone and never fails.
War. What was it about the prospect of some bloody enterprises that reduced men to the level of animals?
When your life has been spent in one war after another for forty-five years, you have to be pretty handy to survive.
A man should not risk his life for beauty alone, Kiall, for that fades. You might as well risk it for a rose. Think on it.
Too many people go through life without pausing to enjoy what they have.
In my experience all women deserve someone better.
Some people are born ugly. It’s not their fault, and I for one have never held it against a man that he is ugly. but others and I count myself among them are born with handsome features. That’s a gift that should not be lightly taken away.
In any broth, the scum always rises to the top.
Life is nothing unless death has been faced down.
This world has few redeeming features, and one is the capacity for people to love one another with great, enduring passion.
Each man has a breaking point, no matter how strong his spirit. Somewhere, deep inside him, there is a flaw that only the fickle cruelty of fate can find.
Bow to nothing, son. I make mistakes as well as any man. If you think me wrong, be so good as to damn well say so.
A man cannot spend his life worrying about the unexpected.
A man with wife and daughters has no place losing his temper.
Our souls are but leaves in a storm, and only the gods know where we will come to rest.
This is the real magic of fantasy fiction: it can feed souls and change lives.
Societies need heroes. So we travel to places where the revisionists cannot dismantle the great.