Top 313 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Jordan

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Robert Jordan.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Robert Jordan

James Oliver Rigney Jr., better known by his pen name Robert Jordan, was an American author of epic fantasy. He is known best for his series The Wheel of Time which comprises 14 books and a prequel novel. He is one of several writers to have written original Conan the Barbarian novels; his are considered some of the best of the non-Robert E. Howard efforts by fans. Jordan also published historical fiction using the pseudonym Reagan O'Neal, a western as Jackson O'Reilly, and dance criticism as Chang Lung. Jordan claimed to have ghostwritten an "international thriller" that is still believed to have been written by someone else.

Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.
You have to have talent to some extent - I certainly hope I have talent - but you have to have luck as well. Once you get that first shot, that will get you noticed for the rest of your books and that will give the rest of your books a better chance.
I'm not certain that I draw from any one culture more than others. Many myths and legends of many different cultures are really the same story when you get to the heart of it. They are often cultural cautionary tales about how we should behave and how we should live.
I think that quite often you can only find a choice between bad and worse. But I think it's worth making the effort, and I like to expose my characters to that sort of situation.
What you want is what you cannot have. What you cannot have is what you want. — © Robert Jordan
What you want is what you cannot have. What you cannot have is what you want.
In a cruel land, you either learned to laugh at cruelty or spent your life weeping.
You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making. If you die, I will not survive you long.
Hardness shatters; strength endures.
There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet.
We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.
If you can't hide what you are going to do, do it so everybody thinks you are a fool.
Run when you have to, fight when you must, rest when you can.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
Yes...how else could Demandred explain the skill of the enemy general? Only a man with the experience of an ancient was so masterly at the dance of battlefields. At their core, many battle tactics were simple. Avoid being flanked, meet heavy force with pikes, infantry with a well-trained line, channelers with other channelers. And yet, the finesse of it...the little details...these took centuries to master. No man from this Age had lived long enough to learn the details with such care.
Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can fight when he’s nothing to lose.
I will hate the man you choose because he isn't me, and love him if he makes you smile.
Whether the bear beats the wolf or the wolf beats the bear, the rabbit always loses. — © Robert Jordan
Whether the bear beats the wolf or the wolf beats the bear, the rabbit always loses.
A cat for a hat, or a hat for a cat. But nothing for nothing.
What is already woven cannot be undone. It will not make the trees grow again for you to bring the building down on our heads.
The Creator made women to please the eye, and to boggle the mind.
Most of those we call heroes only did what they had to do.
We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder.
Sometimes, pain is all that lets you know you're alive.
We all make our limits, and we set them further out than we have any right.
When you wish for so long that you could hear something, and then suddenly, with no warning, you do, it is like a lightning strike and rain on parched ground at the same time. You're stunned, but you cannot hear enough.
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain!
The men in my family are strong because the women in my family kill and eat the weak ones.
Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
Always plan for the worst, child; that way, all your surprises will be pleasant ones.
Take what you can have. Rejoice in what you can save, and do not mourn your losses for too long.
If you pursue two hares, both will escape you.
He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that.
Men always believe they are in control of everything around them. When they find out they are not, they think they have failed, instead of learning a simple truth women already know.
You're not asking me to guess the mind of Matrim Cauthon, are you?" Elayne asked. "I'm convinced that Mat only acts simple so that people will let him get away with more.
Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it?
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
There is some delight in ale and wine And some in girls with ankles fine But my delight, yes always mine Is to dance with Jak O’ the Shadows We will toss the dice however they fall And snuggle the girls be they short or tall Then follow Lord Mat whenever he calls To dance with Jak O’ the Shadows.
I'll never forget the first time Davram took me by the scruff of my neck and showed me he was the stronger of us. It was magnificent! If a woman is stronger than her husband, she comes to despise him. She has the choice of either tyrannizing him or else making herself less in order not to make him less. If the husband is strong enough, though, she can be as strong as she is, as strong as she can grow to be.
A man must know when to retreat from a woman, but a wise man knows that sometimes he must stand and face her.
Thank you," the young mother said again. "Thank you." "The Black Tower protects," Logain heard himself say. "Always." "I will send him to you to be tested when he is of age," the woman promised, holding her son. "I would have him join you, if he has the talent." The talent. Not the curse. The talent.
The lions sing and the hills take flight. The moon by day, and the sun by night. Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool. Let the Lord of Chaos rule.
Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death. — © Robert Jordan
Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death.
Any day you wake up, maybe you die.
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
Never think I have abandoned you. When the sun shines on you, it is my smile. When you hear the breeze stir through the apple blossoms, it is my whisper that I love you. My love is yours forever.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.
Reading is like breathing. If you take it away, first I become antsy, then violent.
She’s not for you, nor you for her; at least, not in the way you both want.
A man without trust is a man without life.
Death comes to us all; we can only choose how to face it when it comes.
Women," Mat declared as he rode Pips down the dusty, little-used road, "are like mules." He frowned. "Wait. No. Goats. Women are like goats. Except every flaming one thinks she's a horse instead, and a prize racing mare to boot. Do you understand me, Talmanes?" "Pure poetry, Mat," Talmanes said, tamping the tabac down into his pipe.
hope is like a piece of string when you’re drowning; it just isn’t enough to get you out by itself. — © Robert Jordan
hope is like a piece of string when you’re drowning; it just isn’t enough to get you out by itself.
Take what you want, and pay for it.
Do not trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.
Out of the night Hopper came, and Perrin was one with the wolf. Hopper, the cub who had watched the eagles soar, and wanted so badly to fly through the sky as the eagles did. The cub who hopped and jumped and leaped until he could leap higher than any other wolf, who never lost the cub's yearning to soar through the sky. [...] Something crashed into his head, and as he fell, he did not know if it was Hopper or himself who died.
You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway.
What can't be changed must be endured.
Better ten days of love than years of regretting.
The fact that the price must be paid is proof it is worth paying.
Hammer the iron that lies on your anvil instead of daydreaming about working silver.
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