More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 10 - January 24, 2025
Thom was right. A man could go crazy trying to understand women, of any nation and any station in life; that was what Thom said.
“You read too much,” she said sharply, “and understand too little.”
Moiraine could not lie, but she could make truth dance a fine jig.
A plan revealed is a plan doomed to fail.
“War used to be something I heard about from peddlers, something far away that I didn’t really understand. I know what it is, now. Men killing men. Men behaving like animals, reduced to animals. Villages burned, farms and fields burned. Hunger, disease and death, for the innocent as the guilty. What makes this war of yours better, Moiraine? What makes it cleaner?”
“If you tell me one more time that you are a fool, I may begin to believe it.”
Why was it women could go to pieces or fly into a rage at the smallest thing, yet never flicker an eyelash at what left you gaping?
High Lords were good at seeing only what they wanted to see.
“Stubborn humans,” the Ogier muttered. “Hasty and stubborn, even when haste lands you in a hornet nest.”
“There’s a saying in the Maule, child,” the Amyrlin went on. “‘Do not trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.’ Mark it well, child.”
‘Smooth words make smooth companions.’
“Where is he? He has learned the first art of kings, it seems. Making people wait.”
When Aiel took one of the holds of an enemy clan in the Waste, by custom—or maybe law; Rand did not understand it exactly—they carried away one-fifth of all it contained, excepting only food. They had seen no reason not to treat the Stone the same. Not that the mules held more than the barest fraction of a fraction of a fifth of the Stone’s treasures. Rhuarc said greed had killed more men than steel.
Elayne again. Sometimes he thought women all belonged to a guild, the way craftsmen in cities did. Put a foot wrong with one, and the next ten you met knew of it, and disapproved.
Those who move with too much knowledge of the future inevitably find disaster, whether from complacency at what they think must come or in their efforts to change it.”
Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”
“Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.”
“Have a care,” Verin told him softly as he slung his bow across his back. “Ta’veren does not mean immortal.”
“Perrin, my father says a general can take care of the living or weep for the dead, but he cannot do both.”
The worst sin a general can commit, worse than blundering, worse than losing, worse than anything, is to desert the men who depend on him.”
Swing a hammer in haste, and you usually hit your own thumb.
Unbroken skin met his fingers, but he felt weaker than at any time since being shot. A small enough price, though, and a fair enough exchange.
Sometimes he thought life would be simpler if he could just forget women altogether.
The Way of the Leaf should have a chance. Somewhere. Not here.
“Well, Cousin Jaim, you tell your children about today. You tell your grandchildren, your grandchildren’s children.” “I’m not going to have any,” Jaim said stoutly. “Girls are horrible. They laugh at you, and they don’t like to do anything worth doing, and you never understand what they’re saying.” “I think one day you’ll find out they’re the opposite of horrible. Some of it won’t change, but that will.”
“Mother says the worst thing Father ever did to her was vow never to be angry with her. It took her a year to force him to take it back, and she says he was hardly fit to live with long before then from holding in. You will be angry with me, Perrin, and I with you. If you want to make me another wedding vow, vow you will not hide it when you are. I cannot deal with what you will not let me see, my husband.
“Be careful, Rand al’Thor,” Bair said as if she had read his thoughts. “A tired man makes mistakes. You cannot afford mistakes today.”
