Brisingr (The Inheritance Cycle, #3)

by Christopher Paolini

I’ve found there are very few fights you can’t win with a few whacks from a good, strong stick.”

I never wanted to be a warrior. I dreamed of blood and glory when I was younger, as every boy does, but the land was what was important to me. That and our family.… And now I have killed.…

I know what we do is right, but right doesn’t mean easy.

Turmoil accompanies every great change

She had stated a truth that he was reluctant to acknowledge, lest by agreeing that one could enjoy violence, he would become a man he would despise. So he was mute.

“Better a stubborn old worrywart than a foolhardy youngling dead before his time.”

That anyone should sacrifice so much for another person meant, by reason of the price paid, that person must be unusually precious.

Most everyone got married, but how many had the opportunity to oversee the birth of a new age?

Most do not know the question and wander in ignorance. Others know the question but fear what the answer will mean. Bah! For thousands of years we have lived like savages. Savages! I shall end that. I shall usher in the age of light, and all shall praise my deed.”

if you drink to forget your lot in life and not for pleasure, you ought to do it where you won’t disturb anyone.”

It is a strange thing, he thought, to be known to people whom you have not met before.

Misfortune always comes to those who wait. The trick is to find happiness in the brief gaps between disasters.

“How is it you always manage to be present when something interesting is about to occur?” “Oh well, I like to know what’s going on, and being there is so much faster than waiting for someone to tell me about it afterward.

people always leave out important pieces of information, like whether someone’s ring finger is longer than their index finger, or whether they have magical shields protecting them, or whether the donkey they are riding happens to have a bald patch in the shape of a rooster’s head. Don’t you agree?”

Is life always this complicated? she wondered. Or do I bring it upon myself?

The monsters of the mind are far worse than those that actually exist. Fear, doubt, and hate have hamstrung more people than beasts ever have.”

The only antidote for the corrosive poison of violence is finding peace within yourself.

“The stories about the heroes of old never mention that this is the price you pay when you grapple with the monsters of the dark and the monsters of the mind.

You should always remain cautious, for no matter your skills, you cannot anticipate and prevent every misfortune fate directs your way.

As far as I am concerned, philosophic questioning is just as likely to make you confused and depressed as it is to improve your condition.

To while away the day contemplating evils that might have been is to poison the happiness we already have.…

“When someone refuses to tell me a certain piece of information, it only makes me that much more determined to find out the truth. I hate being ignorant. For me, a question unanswered is like a thorn in my side that pains me every time I move until I can pluck it out.” “You have my sympathy.” “Why is that?” “Because if that is so, you must spend every waking hour in mortal agony, for life is full of unanswerable questions.”

You are engaged in historic events, Eragon, and the roots of the difficulties you face lie in happenings from decades, centuries, and millennia ago. If I were you, I would study at every opportunity the lessons history has to teach us, for they may help you with the problems of today. In my own life, reading the record of the past has often provided me with the courage and the insight to choose the correct path.”

Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf,

we live in a strange world, and I’ll be lucky if I ever understand more than a small portion of it.”

Oaths are the price we pay for winning the aid of those in power.