Top 179 Quotes & Sayings by Terry Goodkind

No one ever goes into battle thinking God is on the other side.

I felt like I'd been misplaced in the cosmos and I belonged in Maine.

After that, I came back every year. Everyone said, 'Well, when you retire you can move there.' But I said, 'Why should I live my whole life where I don't want to be.'

Knowledge is a weapon. I intend to be formidably armed.

I had to live this long, have the experiences I've had, to create what I do. I knew I wanted to write for years, but I had to be ready so I wouldn't blow it. The move to Maine was the final step.

If God is so powerful, can he create a rock which he cannot lift?

Ever since I was really little, I've had characters that were in my mind.

The first step to believing something is true is wanting to believe it is true... or being afraid it is.

They look at me and I kind of back up in case they go for my throat.

After the book took off, I bought a whole new wardrobe.

It allows you to say things that sound very dramatic and get away with it. If you had characters in modern fiction say the same things as they're driving down the street in an Oldsmobile they'd sound ludicrous!

I've always said fantasy is sort of 'stealth philosophy'.

Your life is yours and yours alone. Rise up and live it.

I hate telling that story to people who've been struggling for years.

Fantasy allows you bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what's happening. In fantasy you can distill life down to the essence of your story.

I don't think I could have written what I did any earlier.

The worse you are at thinking, the better you are at drinking.

Knowledge is a destination. Truth, the journey.

But in the end, we can’t live our lives by ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ We can only do the best we can to the best of our ability based on what we know. That’s why the truth is so important.

...you'll find that being a friend is to like a person for who they are, even the parts you don't understand. You don't have to understand, or do the same, or live their lives for them. If you truly care for them, then you want them to be who they are; that was why you liked them in the first place.

The light of a new day always chases the shadows of the night away, and shows us that the shape of our fears is only the ghost of our own minds.

Once you place that crown of liar on your head, you can take it off again, but it leaves a stain for all time.

The Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything.

In the darkest hours we must believe in ourselves.

Think of the solution, not the problem

There is no place so dangerous as a world without magic.

The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard

We all can be only who we are, no more, no less.

If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.

Only a fool walks into the future backwards.

Sometimes, it is necessary to step beyond what you have known and to reach for something more.

Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery.

It does the sheep no good to preach the goodness of a diet of grass, if the wolves are of a different mind.

I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.

...think of the solution, not the problem. If your mind was filled only with thoughts of why you were going to lose, then you couldn't think of how to win.

Admitting that you do not know something is the first step to learning.

To exist in this vast universe for a speck of time is the great gift of life. Our tiny sliver of time is our gift of life. It is our only life. The universe will go on, indifferent to our brief existence, but while we are here we touch not just part of that vastness, but also the lives around us. Life is the gift each of us has been given. Each life is our own and no one else's. It is precious beyond all counting. It is the greatest value we can have. Cherish it for what it truly is..... Your life is yours alone. Rise up and live it.

She looked so beautiful in the moonlight, but it wasn't only the way she looked, it was what was inside her, everything from her intelligence and courage to her wit, and the special smile she gave only to him. He would slay a dragon, if there were such a thing, just to see that smile. He knew he would never want anyone else for as long as he lived. He would rather spend the rest of his life alone than with someone else. There could be no one else.

Not everyone is willing to embrace liberty; liberty requires not just effort, but risk. Some people choose to delude themselves and see their chains as protective armor.

If you want to be a slave in life, then continue going around asking others to do for you. They will oblige, but you will find the price is your choices, your freedom, your life itself. They will do for you, and as a result you will be in bondage to them forever, having given your identity away for a paltry price. Then, and only then, you will be a nobody, a slave, because you yourself and nobody else made it so.

When the whole world is crazy, it doesn't pay to be sane.

Knowing when to fight is just as important as knowing how.

I wish people had half the honor of dragons.

Fate occasionally touches us all in ways we don't always understand.

There were those who loved liberty, who cried out to live their own lives, to strive, to rise above, to achieve, and those bent on the mindless equality of stagnation brought about through the enforcement of an artificial, arbitrary, gray uniformity--those who wanted to transcend through their own effort, and those who wanted others to think for them and were willing to pay the ultimate price.

There is magic in sincere forgiveness - magic to heal.

Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.

Knowledge comes as it will. Life's lessons come at the most surprising times.

We reap a reward merely in the act of helping others. We never know how, or if, that reward will come back to us. Helping is the reward; none other is needed nor better.

Love is a passion for life shared with another person. You fall in love with a person who you think is wonderful. It's your deepest appreciation of the value of that individual, and that individual is a reflection of what you value most in life. Love, for sound reasons, can be one of life's greatest rewards.

many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see free people as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sun will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest, and in that way give light to all. They would rather be provided a guiding light, regardless of the fuel, than light a candle themselves.

If you care about yourself, you should care about learning - even learning simple things. You come to have pride in yourself only by accomplishing things, even from fixing some old stairs...Others can't grant you self-respect, even others who care about you. You have to earn self-respect yourself.

That's what friends are for-to be strong for you when you need a moment to find your own strength.

People are stupid... They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they're afraid it might be true.

You can't love anyone or anything until you love your own existence first. Love can only grow out of a respect for your own life.

Truth has advocates who seek understanding," Richard said. "Corrupt ideas have miserable little fanatics who attempt to enforce their beliefs through intimidation and brutality... through faith. Savage force is faith's obedient servant. Violence on an apocalyptic scale can only be born of faith because reason, by its very nature, disarms senseless cruelty. Only faith thinks to justify it.

Reality is irrelevant; Perception is everything.

If the road is easy, you're likely going the wrong way.

Right and wrong are not the product of census.

Nothing marks a man's character better than his attraction to intelligence.