"Hurt leads to bitterness, bitterness to anger, travel too far that road and the way is lost."
— Terry Brooks

"Who would you be but who you are?"
— Terry Brooks (The Black Unicorn)

"We live out our lives as we are meant to live them-with some choice, with some chance, but mostly as a result of the persons we are."
— Terry Brooks (The Druid of Shannara)

"Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing.
Visions born of hope give birth to our success.
What is possible lives within us, and it only remains for us to discover it.
"
— Terry Brooks

"What you write chooses you."
— Terry Brooks

"She has her gown nicely in place tonight, doesnt she? Black velvet and sparkles, not a thread left hanging. Clever girl, this city. Even the sky is her friend."
— Terry Brooks

"Let me tell you something you haven't learnt yet, something you learn only by living awhile. As you get older, you find that life begins to wear you down. Doesn't matter who you are or what you do, it happens. Experience, time, events - they all conspire against you to steal away your energy, to erode your confidence, to make you question things you wouldn't have given a second thought to when you were young. It happens gradually, a chipping away that you don't even notice at first, and then one day it's there. You wake up and you just don't have the fire anymore...Then you have a choice. You can either give in to what you're feeling, just say "okay, enough is enough" and be done with it, or you can fight it. You can accept that every day you're alive you're going to have to face it down, that you're going to have to say to yourself that you don't care what you feel, that it doesn't matter what happens anyway, that you're going to do what you have to because otherwise you're defeated and life doesn't have any real pupose left. When you can do that, little Wren, when you can accept the wearing down and the eroding, then you can do anything. How did I manage to keep going out nights? I just told myself I didn't matter all that much - that those in here mattered more. You know something? It's not so hard really. You just have to get past the fear."
— Terry Brooks

"We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But First we must find a way to survive against the things that prevent us from doing so."
— Terry Brooks

"If you are always frightened for yourself you can't act, and then life loses its purpose. You just have to tell yourself that, when you get right down to it, you don't matter all that much."
— Terry Brooks (The Elf Queen of Shannara)