The Sword of Shannara Quotes

“Herein lies the heart and soul of the nations.
Their right to be free men,
Their desire to live in peace,
Their courage to seek out truth,
Herein lies the Sword of Shannara.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“Central governments have always been the greatest danger to mankind.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“Either you believed in something or you didn’t—you couldn’t have it both ways and be honest with yourself.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“They became sleepwalkers in a world of half-dreams and rambling thoughts with no break in the wearing march or the never-ending, silent black trunks that came and passed in countless thousands.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“There was a madness in the scheme of life that men were forced to accept either with resigned fury or blunt indifference.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“We build too many walls to be honest with ourselves. -Allanon”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“It’s more habit than stupidity when I laugh at these things. I laugh at them to stay a sane man.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“that the wars of the past were slowly being forgotten. Shea believed that one could turn his back on the past and build a new world with the future, never understanding that the future was inextricably tied to the past, an interwoven tapestry of events and ideas that would never be entirely severed.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“... even a friendly smile shows the teeth behind!”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“The highlander seemed to float through life very much the same as a cloud in an empty sky, touching nothing, leaving no trace of his passing.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“for the history of Man has not been particularly glorious in the last two thousand years. Men today have forgotten the past; they know little of the present and less of the future. The race of Man lives almost solely in the confines of the Southland. It knows nothing at all of the Northland and its peoples, and little of the Eastland and Westland. A pity that Men have developed into such a shortsighted people, for once they were the most visionary of the races. But now they are quite content to live apart from the other races, isolated from the problems of the rest of the world. They remain content, mind you, because those problems have not as yet touched them and because a fear of the past has persuaded them not to look too closely at the future.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“Truisms, my young friend, are the useless children of hindsight.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“All those men had died for some senseless reason, died perhaps without ever knowing exactly what they had fought to accomplish.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“He laughed in maddened frenzy, knowing somehow that he was no longer in a world of living creatures, but a world of death where soulless beings wandered in hopeless search of escape from their eternal prison. He stumbled on amidst them, laughing, talking, even singing gaily, his mind no longer a part of his mortal being. All about him, the creatures of the dark world followed in cringing companionship, knowing that the maddened mortal was almost one of them.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“Shea, particularly, had passed the point where his chief emotion was fear; now he felt only a sense of numbness that dulled his mind into self-imposed surrender, a robot-like acceptance of the fact that he was being led to the proverbial slaughter.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“there were several times when Shea wished that Panamon Creel would tire of his own voice for a few minutes. The tall thief carried on a steady conversation with his companions, with himself, and on occasion with no one in particular, for the entire morning. He talked about everything imaginable, including a good many things about which he seemed to know nothing.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“He didn’t try to think, didn’t care to remember, but wished only to lose himself in the peace and quiet”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“Shea stood up suddenly and cleared his throat. Everyone looked in his direction, and his mind went blank.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“This place into which they had dared to venture was a limbo world of half-life, where the senses were stifled and fears grew in an unfettered imagination. One could feel the presence of death fragmenting the darkness, a touch here, a touch there, brushing softly the mortal creature it would one day claim. The unreal became almost acceptable in this strange darkness as all the restrictions of the human senses vanished into dreamlike remembrances, and the visions of the inner mind, the subconscious, pushed quickly to the fore, searching for recognition.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“Something deep within hinted with dread persistence that he would never go back to what had been,”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“At that moment, he knew what death really meant and he was afraid. There was no adventure in it, no sense of purpose or choice, nothing but a sickening disgust and shock. All those men had died for some senseless reason, died perhaps without ever knowing exactly what they had fought to accomplish. Nothing was worth such terrible slaughter—nothing.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“What I have told you is not legend; it is the truth. The sword is real; it rests today at Paranor. But most important of all, the Warlock Lord is real. He lives today and the Skull Kingdom is his domain!”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“I ricordi non sono tesori di vetro da tenere conservati dentro una cassa. Sono nastri colorati da appendere al vento.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“Il sole tramontava già fra le profondità verdi delle colline a ovest della vallata, e le sue ombre rosse e rosate sfioravano gli angoli più remoti della campagna, quando Flick Ohmsford cominciò la sua discesa. Il sentiero calava giù irregolarmente per il pendio settentrionale, serpeggiando attraverso i massi imponenti che costeggiavano il terreno, sparendo nelle folte foreste delle pianure per ricomparire a tratti nelle piccole radure e negli spazi liberi della zona dei boschi.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“The Elven King in that year was Jerle Shannara—the greatest of all the Elven kings,”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“The Great Wars began, building gradually from smaller disputes between a few peoples and spreading steadily, despite the realization of what was happening—spreading from little matters into basic hatreds: race, nationality, boundaries, creeds … in the end, everything.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“It was impossible to tell who it was or even what it was by the time they were finished. They tore him to pieces!” Hendel!”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“the city appeared to be choking to death rather than crumbling with time.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“He went to the greatest nation of his time—the Elven people under the command of a courageous young King named Jerle Shannara—and offered his assistance.”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara

“There was a madness in the scheme of life that men were forced to accept either with resigned fury or blunt indifference”
― Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara