Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time, #13; A Memory of Light, #2)

by Robert Jordan

Mandarb’s hooves beat a familiar rhythm on broken ground as Lan Mandragoran rode toward his death.

‘These are the darkest days of men. Days when hope is weak, days when death reigns. But it is on the deepest nights when light is most glorious. During the day, a brilliant beacon can appear weak. But when all other lights fail, it will guide! ‘We are that beacon.

Idle hands made idle minds.

He put his feet wide in a warrior’s stance, his hands held before himself with his wrists crossed. He opened his eyes, back straight, staring at the tent flaps. It wasn’t the cloak, the uniform, the heraldry, or the sword that made a man. It was the way he held himself.

He attacked because he had no other option. When you really wanted to see what a man was worth, you backed him into a corner and made him fight for his life.

‘We’re not children, Mother,’ Siuan said dryly. ‘No, you’re Aes Sedai – nearly as bad at following directions.’

Traditions should not be maintained just because they were traditions. Strength was not strength if it had no purpose or direction.

One of the tricks to life was paying attention to the small details. Focus, make the small things right.

Seconds were small things, and if you heaped enough of those on top of one another, they became a man’s life.

‘Is every last farmboy I know going to transform into a nobleman by the time this is through?’ ‘I’m no nobleman,’ Mat said. ‘Oh?’ Thom asked. ‘Prince of the Ravens?’ Mat pulled his hat down. ‘People can call me what they want. That doesn’t mean I’m one of them.’

‘And so we begin the game that cannot be won,’ Thom said,

‘Courage to strengthen,’ Noal whispered, stepping forward, holding up a lantern with a flickering flame. ‘Fire to blind. Music to dazzle. Iron to bind.’ ‘And Matrim Cauthon,’ Mat added. ‘To bloody even the odds.’ He stepped through the doorway.

The most displeasing of events in our lives are sometimes for our good.’