Inheritance Quotes

“Do not feel bad because of it.  It's impossible to go through life unscathed.  Nor should you want to.  By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishment.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“It is an overactive imagination that turns men into cowards, not a surfeit of fear, as many believe”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“I am not who I was, but I know who I am.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“All great fighting is the same, Eragon, even as all great warriors are the same. Past a certain point, it does not matter whether you wield a sword, a claw, a tooth or a tail. It is true, you must be capable with your weapon, but anyone with the time, and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness, and it is those qualities that the best warriors share, even if, on the surface, they appear completely different.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“And the ship sailed onward, gliding serenely down the moonlit river toward the dark lands beyond.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“He inclined his head ever so slightly, displaying with his bearing the supreme confidence, even arrogance, that is the sole providence of cats, dragons, and certain highborn women.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“It is easy to be calm when there is nothing to worry about, Eragon. The true test of your self-control, however, is whether you can remain calm in a trying situation. You cannot allow anger or frustration to cloud your thoughts, not at the moment. Right now, you need your mind to be clear.
Have you always been able to remain calm at times like this?
The old dragon seemed to chuckle. No. I used to growl and bite and knock down trees and tear up the ground. Once, I broke the top off of a mountain in the Spine; the other dragons were rather upset with me for that. But I have had many years to learn that losing my temper rarely helps. You have not, I know, but allow my experience to guide you in this. Let go of your worries and focus on the task at hand. The future will be what is will, and fretting about it will only make your fears more likely to come true.
I know, Eragon sighed, but it's not easy.
Of course not. Few things of worth are. Then Glaedr withdrew and left him to the silence of his own mind.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Better to see widely than to see too closely and allow some feature of place or situation to catch you unawares. Do you understand?”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“But you did everything you could, and when you could do no more , you made peace with your fate, and you didn't rail needlessly against it. That is wisdom, not weakness.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Unlike the majority of people, he did not hate or fear the wilderness; as harsh as the empty lands were, they possessed a grace and a beauty that no artifice could compete with and that he found restorative.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“He had reached his goal. He had climbed the unclimbable mountain”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“It’s like trying to herd a flock of geese,” said Orik. “They’re always trying to go off on their own, they make an obnoxious noise, and they’ll bite your hand first chance they get.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“If you could have stopped it, or if you could have escaped but you didn't, then you would have lost my respect. But you did everything you could, and when you could do no more, you made peace with your fate, and you didn't rail needlessly against it. That is wisdom, not weakness.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“I need no master to punish me in order to behave as I ought. If I did, I would be no more than a child who obeys his father's rules only because he fears the whip, and not because he actually means good.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Eragon waited several minutes to be sure it was gone before he returned to clearing the rubble. "Maybe i should just call myself Snail Vanquisher," he muttered as he rolled a section of a pillar across the courtyard. "Eragon Shadeslayer, Vanquisher of Snails....I would strike fear into the hearts of men wherever I went.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Death, he had come to believe, was a corrosive thing, and the more he was around it , the more it gnawed away at who he was.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Fate has a cruel sense of humor, don't you think?”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Was a broad but shallow education superior to one that was narrow but deep?”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“You worry about a crack in the floor while the whole mountain is about to come down on us!”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“He began to write his thoughts and observations concerning the day's events [...] It helped him better understand everything he had seen and done over the course of the day.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishments..”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“The way of the warrior is the way of knowing. If that knowledge requires you to use anger, then you use anger, but you cannot wrest forth knowledge by losing your temper. Pain and frustration will be your only reward if you try.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“If we are to tempt fate, then let us not be cowards about it.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“False modesty is never admirable, and least of all among those who command others.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“A dark and lonely plain lay before him, cut by a single strip of water that flowed slow-moving into the east: a ribbon of beaten silver bright beneath the glare of a full moon.… Floating on the nameless river, a ship, tall and proud, with pure white sails raised and ready.… Ranks of warriors holding lances, and two hooded figures walking among them, as if in a stately procession. The smell of willows and cottonwoods, and a sense of passing sorrow.…”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“What he wanted was both simple and complex: he wanted Galbatorix to understand...”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Some miles to the North, a ring of mountains rose out of the clouds. The peaks were clad in snow and ice, and together they looked like an ancient, jagged crown resting atop the layers of mist. The eastward-facing scarps shone brilliantly in the light of the morning sun, while long blue shadows cloaked the western sides and stretched dwindling into the distance, tenebrous daggers upon the billowy, snow-white plain.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“When the sun touched the earth, it spread out along the horizon like a giant yolk oozing free of its skin.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Rooms that are bigger on the inside than the outside.…”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“Several hundred feet ahead, Saphira and Thorn tussled, two giants in the night.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance