Bearers of the Black Staff Quotes

“We are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, and no amount of education gleaned from our propensity for self-destruction and misguided thinking ever teaches us anything. Not anything that we remember for more than a generation or two.

I think maybe we learn a few things each time that we don't forget. A few things that stick with us. It's just hard to pass those things on to those who come after us because if they didn't live through it, they don't view it the same way we do. If you don't experience something firsthand, it's a lot harder to accept. Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff, p 89”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“And yet it had come to this: a cult that followed a dogmatic hard line of exclusion and repression, believed its teachings alone were the way that others must follow, and claimed special knowledge of something that had happened more than five centuries ago. It did nothing to soften its rigid stance, nothing to heal wounds that it had helped to create by deliberately shunning people of other Races, and nothing to explore the possibility of other beliefs. It held its ground even in the face of hard evidence that perhaps it had misjudged and refused to consider that it was courting a danger that might destroy everyone. p96”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“It is in the nature of things to want to believe that what's familiar and comfortable will last forever.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“She had grown to accept unpleasantness as a part of life rather than to struggle futilely against truths that could not be changed.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Centuries of enlightenment and progress vanished virtually overnight because Men couldn’t find a way to use it wisely and purposefully.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“This isn’t something I had planned to talk about so soon,” her grandmother said as they entered the gardens. “I wanted to wait awhile longer to give you a chance to demonstrate that you were ready, that you had listened to what I told you about growing up and making mature decisions. I wanted you to season a little more. But we don’t always get what we want in this life. In fact, we don’t get what we want most of the time. We get compromises and settlements, half measures and tamped-down dreams. We get half a loaf baked, half a glass filled. That’s what we have here.”
Phryne nodded, having no idea what she was talking about. “That might be so, but we don’t have to like it.”
“We shouldn’t have to accept it, either. Mostly, we don’t. We understand the odds are against us, but we still strive for something more. We make our best effort each time out because now and then we get exactly what we want.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“WHEN ALL OF THE OTHERS WERE DEAD OR dying and he was the last, Pan had broken clear of the pass and made a quick decision. If he ran, they were going to catch and kill him as they had the rest. He needed to get out of their reach another way. So he managed to scale a cliff wall just outside the mouth of the pass that was so sheer and treacherous that neither the heavier Trolls nor the Skaith Hounds could follow. Navigating a series of footholds and outcroppings, he had found a niche that he could squeeze into just far enough that their weapons could not harm him. Once in place, he settled back to wait. There was nothing else he could do. Sooner or later, help might arrive. Or the Drouj might grow tired of waiting for him to come down and leave.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Phryne tried reasoning with him, but he talked right over her attempts at an explanation, fixated on his belief that she had not only disobeyed him but lied to him, as well.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“By
TERRY BROOKS ONE HUMMING TUNELESSLY, THE RAGPICKER WALKED THE barren, empty wasteland in the aftermath of the rainstorm.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“THE MEASURE OF THE MAGIC. Read on for an excerpt from THE MEASURE OF
THE MAGIC The conclusion to
Legends of Shannara”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“out because now and then we get exactly what we want.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“We shouldn’t have to accept it, either. Mostly, we don’t. We understand the odds are against us, but we still strive for something more. We make our best effort each time”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“But we don’t always get what we want in this life. In fact, we don’t get what we want most of the time. We get compromises and settlements, half measures and tamped-down dreams. We get half a loaf baked, half a glass filled. That’s what we have here.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“but I am old. It is important to accept truths, even when they are inconvenient.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“They are much more concerned about not doing the wrong thing than doing the right.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“It is in the nature of things to want to believe that what’s familiar and comfortable will last forever.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Besides, reality did not require that you forgo your dreams, and dreams sometimes revealed paths that led to new realities.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“faith intact or risk losing it. No one likes letting go of what they have always believed, even when they know it’s right to do so.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“They want so hard to believe in what they’ve been taught that they find ways to rationalize things they wouldn’t stand for otherwise. They need to keep their”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“And yet it had come to this: a cult that followed a dogmatic hard line of exclusion and repression, believed its teachings alone were the way that others must follow, and claimed special knowledge of something that had happened more than five centuries ago. It”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“past, it’s so now, and I would be willing to bet it’ll be so forever.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Change comes in the form of repetition. We are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, and no amount of education gleaned from our propensity for self-destruction and misguided thinking ever teaches us anything. Not anything that we remember for more than a generation or two, in any case. It’s been so in the”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“But we don’t always get what we want in this life. In fact, we don’t get what we want most of the time. We get compromises and settlements, half measures and tamped-down dreams. We get half a loaf baked, half a glass filled.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Life is for the living, and the living have an obligation to carry on.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“What on the surface seems obvious and clear is mired in chains of details that are interlinked and sometimes unbreakable.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“He still doesn’t know how life can turn you around and twist you about and do with you what it will.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Revenge is such a tiresome business.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“You are a girl becoming a woman, but you are not there yet. You will get there more quickly and smoothly if you question your choices before acting on them.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Those who ignore the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them in the future, but no one believes it.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff

“Am I missing something?
Everything. But I find no fault in you for that. Why should you see so clearly in a matter of minutes what I have lived with for years? It will not be easy for you now or later. It will never be easy. But it will be important. It will matter.”
― Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff