Hardness shatters; strength endures.
Waiting turns men into bears in a barn, and women into cats in a sack.
Sometimes, pain is all that lets you know you’re alive.
A woman’s eyes cut deeper than a knife.
Always plan for the worst, child, that way all your surprises are pleasant ones.
There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet.
May you shelter in the palm of the Creator’s hand, and may the last embrace of the mother welcome you home.
As my Lord says, my Lord’s leg is not a side of beef. Thank you, my Lord, for instructing me.
Loial, son of Arent, son of Halen, had secretly always wanted to be hasty.
If your enemy offers you two targets, strike at a third.
One pretty woman means fun at the dance. Two pretty women means trouble in the house. Three pretty women means run at the hills.
Anyone who claimed that old age had brought them patience was either lying or senile.
As the Wheel of Time turns, places wear many names. Men wear many names, many faces. Different faces, but always the same man. Yet no one knows the Great Pattern the Wheel weaves, or even the Pattern of an Age. We can only watch, and study, and hope.
You could weave silk from pig bristles before you could make a man anything but a man.
A man without trust is a man without life.
If a woman does need a hero, she needs him today, not tomorrow.
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 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.
Sleep well and wake, Rand al’Thor.