I’ve spared with demons from the Nine Hells themselves, I shall barely break a sweat here today.
Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen emey, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength- Drizzt Do’Urden.
A world without dragons is a world not worth living in.
There is a wide world out there, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth and the latter makes the journey tolerable.
Because everything of value that we will know in this life comes from our relationships with those around us. Because there is nothing material that measures against the intangibles of love and friendship.
Drizzt had always suspected it, but now it was confirmed, that “welcome” was his favortie word in the Common Tongue, and a word, he understood with no equivalent in the language of the drow.
And the real thing can kill you whether you believe in it or not.
I need no fantasies to belittle the great treasures that I already possess.
I loved to read and to write, but then something happened. As I made my way through school, I kept getting handed books to read that didn’t excite me and didn’t even remotely connect to the realities of my life.
I’m trying to make all the characters change and grow, or regress.
Because in fantasy perhaps more than in any other genre, the character is rewarded for making the right choices and punished for making the bad. Ask Boromir.
We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope- nay, the iron-will!- to find a memory in every action. To be alive, under sunshine, or starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance with every step, be they through gardens of flowers or through deep snows.
Station is the paradox of the world of my people, the limitation of our power within the hunger for power. It is gained through treachery and invites treachery against those who gain it. Those most powerful in Menzoberranzan spend their days watching over their shoulders, defending against the daggers that would find their backs. Their deaths usually come from the front.” -Drizzt Do’Urden.
Drizzt Do’Urden had followed a line of precepts based upon discipline and ultimate optimism. He fought for a better world because he believed that a better world could and would be made. He had never held any illusions that he would change the world, of course, or even a substantial portion of it, but he always held strongly that fighting to better just his own little pocket of the world was a worthwhile cause.
As I became a creature of the empty tunnels, survival became easier and more difficult all at once. I gained in the physical skills and experience necessary to live on. I could defeat almost anything that wandered into my chosen domain. It did not take me long, however, to discover one nemesis that I could neither defeat nor flee. It followed me wherever I went – indeed, the farther I ran, the more it closed in around me. My enemy was solitude, the interminable, incessant silence of hushed corridors.
To lose is to die! You may win a thousand fights, but you can only lose one!
A man inferior with the blade or with his thoughts can still so elevate himself,” Entreri explained curtly, “if he can impart the belief that some god or other speaks through him. It is the greatest deception in all the world and one embraced by kings and lords, while the minor lying thieves on the streets or Calimport and other cities lose their tongues for so attempting to coax the purses of others.
A sense of accomplishment. It is the most important ingredient in any rational being’s formula of happiness. It is the element that builds confidence and allows us to go on to other, greater tasks. It is the item that promotes a sense of self-worth, that allows any person to believe there is value in life itself, that gives a sense of purpose to bolster us as we face life’s unanswerable questions.
Only when we admit to our failures and recognize our weaknesses can we rise above them.
I don’t like the sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating. And it gets everywhere.