Scott Van Wetter > Scott Van Wetter's Quotes

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it doesn't exist and never shall. There is only now.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eldest

“Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eragon

“Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“If you're always on time, it implies that you never have anything better you should be doing.”
― Brandon Sanderson

“But you can't kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that one thing you've never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different," Sazed said. "Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Ham turned back, still smiling. "You make it sound so desperate, El."
Elend looked over at him. "The Assembly is a mess, a half-dozen warlords with superior armies are breathing down my neck, barely a month passes without someone sending assassins to kill me, and the woman I love is slowly driving me insane."
Vin snorted at this last part.
"Oh is that all?" Ham said. "See? It's not so bad after all. I mean, we could be facing an immortal god and his all-powerful priests instead.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven, could unravel and separate over a thing like that. But the fact was, I suppose, there were powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task. If we'd understood that back then-who knows?-maybe we'd have kept a tighter hold of one another.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“A man is what he has passion about,” Breeze said. “I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“I want you to tell me
about the Survivor," he finally said.
"He was lord of the mists," Demoux said immediately.
"Not the rhetoric," Elend said. "Someone tell me about the man, Kelsier. I never met him, you know. I
saw him once, right before he died, but I never knew him."
"What's the point?" Cett asked. "We've all heard the stories. He's practically a god, if you listen to the
skaa."
"Just do as I ask," Elend said.
The tent was still for a few moments. Finally, Ham spoke. "Kell was . . . grand. He wasn't just a man,
he was bigger than that. Everything he did was large—his dreams, the way he spoke, the way he thought.
. . ."
"And it wasn't false," Breeze added. "I can tell when a man is being a fake. That's why I started my
first job with Kelsier, actually. Amidst all the pretenders and posturers, he was genuine. Everyone wanted
to be the best. Kelsier really was."
"He was a man," Vin said quietly. "Just a man. Yet, you always knew he'd succeed. He made you be
what he wanted you to be."
"So he could use you," Breeze said.
"But you were better when he was done with you," Ham added”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“Breeze chuckled. "He was completely insane, you know. The worse things got, the more he'd joke. I
remember how chipper he was the very day after one of our worst defeats, when we lost most of our
skaa army to that fool Yeden. Kell walked in, a spring in his step, making one of his inane jokes."
"Sounds insensitive," Allrianne said.
Ham shook his head. "No. He was just determined. He always said that laughter was something the
Lord Ruler couldn't take from him. He planned and executed the overthrow of a thousand-year
empire—and he did it as a kind of . . . penance for letting his wife die thinking that he hated her. But, he
did it all with a smirk on his lips. Like every joke was his way of slapping fate in the face."
"We need what he had," Elend said.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“Breeze chuckled. “I don’t know if you noticed the earthquake a few minutes ago, my dear man, but the world appears to be ending. That is an indisputably depressing event.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“It's easy to believe in something when you win all the time...The losses are what define a man's faith.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“There has to be a balance, Vin," Elend said. "Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be." He sighed. "But for now," he said, nodding to the side, "we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Elend smiled. "Oh, come on. You have to admit that you're unusual, Vin. You're like some strange mixture of a noblewoman, a street urchin, and a cat. Plus, you've mangaged - in our short three years together - to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancée. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?”
― Lance Armstrong, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.”
― Louis C.K.

“We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.”
― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
― Albert Einstein

“If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents, out-learn them, outlive them, and know more than they do.”
― Henry Rollins