Terry Brooks Quotes & Sayings

She has her gown nicely in place tonight, doesn't she? Black velvet and sparkles, not a thread left hanging. Clever girl, this city. Even the sky is her friend. — Terry Brooks

Everything changes with time's passage. Only change itself is constant. — Terry Brooks

Not everything we do in this world is about us, Panther. Sometimes we have do things for other reasons. Sometimes we've got to forget about ourselves and help others. If not, what's the point? — Terry Brooks

Sometimes change is necessary. Sometimes we recognize the need for it, but we don't know how to achieve it. We misread its nature. We think it is beyond us, failing to recognize that our inability to act is a problem of our own making. Change is the solution we require, but it is not a goal that is easily reached. Identifying and disposing of what is troubling to us requires caution and understanding. — Terry Brooks

If you are ever completely satisfied with something you have written, you are setting your sights too low. But if you can't let go of your material even after you have done the best that you can with it, you are setting your sights too high. — Terry Brooks

The shadow of greed, attachment is. What you fear to lose, train yourself to release. Let go of fear, and loss cannot harm you. — Terry Brooks

The future is a map drawn in the sand, and the tide can wash it away in a moment. — Terry Brooks

But when you're dying you don't have much time for common sense. — Terry Brooks

You shouldn't believe everything you hear you're young, not stupid. — Terry Brooks

I didn't want readers to have to make allowances for what they couldn't see, but to be able to say to themselves that the fabric of the magic detailed was perfectly believable. — Terry Brooks

My breakthrough as a reader was when I discovered the European adventure story writers - Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, to name a few. — Terry Brooks

Most of all, he needed a challenge - because that was what gave life meaning. — Terry Brooks

There were always risks in life. Life was meant to be lived like that because if it wasn't, then what was the purpose of living it at all? Measuring — Terry Brooks

Because life's dictates did not allow for quick and easy distinctions between right and wrong or good and bad. Choices were made between shades of gray, and there was healing and harm to be weighed on both sides of each. — Terry Brooks

If you get the urge, then write about it. — Terry Brooks

Failure to act in a timely manner can be fatal. — Terry Brooks

Some decisions cannot be made in advance of the time that will demand them. We cannot always anticipate the way in which things will happen and therefore cannot anticipate what we will do. We must accept that. — Terry Brooks

Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing.
Visions born of hope give birth to our success.
What is possible lives within us, and it only remains for us to discover it. — Terry Brooks

We are not always properly equipped to face the difficulties life places in our path. — Terry Brooks

Your past was your heritage and the foundation on which you were built. You couldn't start over. You could only repair and move on. — Terry Brooks

There is poetry in fiction. If you cannot see it and feel it when you write, you need to step back and examine what you are doing wrong. If you have not figured out how to write a simple declarative sentence and make it sing with that poetry, you are not yet ready to write an entire book. — Terry Brooks

Cats can do whatever they want, whenever they want, without regard to what anyone says or does. Rather like Princesses. — Terry Brooks

No one said anything. The midday heat beat down on them, baking their bodies within the oven of clothes long since gone stiff with sweat and dirt, their minds as tired as their expectations. Hawk couldn't remember his last real bath. None of them had done more than wash off a little dirt and cool down their faces at the end of each day's trek since they had set out. Before that, things hadn't been much better. Food was growing scarce, too. Time was as thin as hope. — Terry Brooks

Honesty is never wrong. — Terry Brooks

Love supplies a kind of strength that can withstand even death. — Terry Brooks

All those men had died for some senseless reason, died perhaps without ever knowing exactly what they had fought to accomplish. — Terry Brooks

Either you believed in something or you didn't - you couldn't have it both ways and be honest with yourself. — Terry Brooks

Couples and singles made a poor mix, and most of their friends had been couples. He hadn't done much to foster continuing friendships in any case, spending most of his time involved with his work and with his private, inviolate grief. He was not such good company anymore, and only Miles had had the patience and the perseverance to stay with him. — Terry Brooks

What do you care?" Arik Siq asked. "Who your people were matters hardly at all. Who they are now is what matters. Who you are." "Your history is sometimes a way of understanding your present," Pan replied. "You are your history. — Terry Brooks

I cannot imagine life without books any more than I can imagine life without breathing. — Terry Brooks

Even in lies there are sometimes truths revealed. — Terry Brooks

Life was a myriad of twists and turns that no one could unravel, a path that must be traveled to be understood. — Terry Brooks

What you write chooses you. — Terry Brooks

You can get away with breaking all of the other rules at least once in a while, but you can't get away with breaking this one. Readers will accept almost anything from you if you don't make them feel they have wasted their time and money. Remember, you can bore readers in a lot of different ways. It doesn't necessarily take a dearth of action; too much action can get you the same result. Everything in writing, like in life, requires balance. — Terry Brooks

Do not be so quick to accept as truth what is only conjecture. — Terry Brooks

Who would you be but who you are? — Terry Brooks

He had never been in love. He had not known what it would feel like. He understood what the term meant, but his life had not allowed for exploring its possibilities. There had been few he had really loved. His parents; Michael. That was it. And that was love of a different kind. Less intense, less hungry. What he felt for Simralin went so far beyond anything manageable that it shocked him. He could tell himself it was because he had found her beautiful in a way that transcended anything he had ever known. But his attraction to her was a response to so much more. To her self-confidence and way of speaking. To her smile and the quirky way she lifted one eyebrow when she was amused. To the way she carried herself. To the way she looked at him. — Terry Brooks

Lester del Rey told me repeatedly that the first and most important part of writing fiction is just to think about the story. Don't write anything down. Don't try to pull anything together right away. Just dream for a while and see what happens. There isn't any timetable involved, no measuring stick for how long it ought to take. For each book, it is different. But that period of thinking, of reflection, is crucial to how successful your story will turn out to be. — Terry Brooks

We live out our lives as we are meant to live them-with some choice, with some chance, but mostly as a result of the persons we are. — Terry Brooks

A reluctance to acknowledge that there may be wisdom in youth would be foolish. — Terry Brooks

When a massive failure to preserve the integrity of an ecosystem occured, no one escaped the consequences. — Terry Brooks

We should not be less than what we are. — Terry Brooks

If you are always frightened for yourself you can't act, and then life loses its purpose. You just have to tell yourself that, when you get right down to it, you don't matter all that much. — Terry Brooks

You spend so much time wondering who you are, don't you think? You flounder about, searching for your identity, when most of the time it is plain as the nose on your face. You struggle with questions of purpose and need, and forget that the answers are found mostly inside yourselves. — Terry Brooks

Past, present, and future, the symbiosis of our lives," the old man continued quietly, gently. "Our birth, our life, our death, all tied into a single package that we spend our time on this earth unwrapping. Sometimes we see clearly what it is we are looking at. Sometimes we do not. Sometimes things happen to distract or deceive us, and we must look more carefully at what it is we hold. — Terry Brooks

THE NAME OF THE WIND marks the debut of a writer we would all do well to watch. Patrick Rothfuss has real talent, and his tale of Kvothe is deep and intricate and wondrous. — Terry Brooks

Friendship doesn't have anything to do with shoring up weakness. It has to do with respect and consideration for those you care about. It has to do with wanting to give something back to those you admire. — Terry Brooks

When I was a kid, we had to rely on our imaginations for entertainment. — Terry Brooks

I haven't made up my mind about doing anymore Landover books. — Terry Brooks

There were times, she knew from experience, when it was best just to continue on rather than to shift directions, even when it didn't seem as if you were getting anywhere. Your chances of success weren't always something you could measure accurately. Perseverance in the face of failure counted for something. — Terry Brooks

I know you hate yourself for how you are. I know you hate how you look and how you know others will look at you if you reveal yourself. But sometimes, with people who matter, you have to reveal even the worst of what you believe yourself to be. You have to have faith that it won't make a difference. I would never judge you for how you look. Who you are is what matters, and who you are is always buried deep inside. — Terry Brooks

A cat never discusses his business with humans, not even Princesses. A cat never explains and never apologizes. A cat never alibis. You must accept a cat as it is and for what it is and not expect more than the pleasure of its company. — Terry Brooks

It isn't a good idea to force young girls to marry," Stabo lectured, looking from one man to the other. "Marriage, in general, isn't a particularly desirable institution. It causes all sorts of trouble, from what I have observed over the centuries. In any case, a Princess shouldn't marry this young, the issue of the advisability of marriage aside. She should be free to grow up and spend time with more interesting creatures than prospective husbands. Dragons, for instance. We're much more interesting than you, Laphroig. Or you, Craswell. So be warned. If I hear any further attempts at forcing this girl to marry either one of you or anyone you know or even anyone I think you know, I will not be so lenient. — Terry Brooks

Evil contained is not evil destroyed. — Terry Brooks

What we have in life that we can count on is who we are and where we come from, she thought absently. For better or worse, that is what we have to sustain us in our endevors, to buttress us in our darker moments, and to remind us of our identity. Without those things, we are adrift. — Terry Brooks

For a writer, its very attractive to stay in one world for a time. — Terry Brooks

I am incomplete without my work. I am so closely bound to it, so much identified by it, that without it I think I would crumble into dust and drift away. — Terry Brooks

We grow as best we can under the circumstances given us. What good does it do to second-guess ourselves years after the fact? Better that we simply try to understand why we are as we are and then better ourselves by learning from that. — Terry Brooks

Put the past behind you and the future ahead where they belong and spend your time in the present with the rest of us. — Terry Brooks

Fiction writing is a twenty-four-hou r-a-day occupation. You never leave your work behind. It is always with you, and to some extent, you are always thinking about it. You don't take your work home; your work never leaves home. It lives inside you. It resides and grows and comes alive in your mind. — Terry Brooks

I am the mother of this child. I am the one who carries it in her body. I am the giver of its life. Yet I have almost nothing to say about its coming into the world. — Terry Brooks

He finished the Cherry Coke, and when the hash arrived he ordered a glass of milk to go with it. He ate the hash and drank the milk without looking up. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Josie Jackson looking at him as she passed down the counter. — Terry Brooks

You were guaranteed so little in this life, and so sometimes you took what was offered even though you knew it might end badly. — Terry Brooks

But Miles had always approached life differently than he, always preferring to blend in with his surroundings rather than to shape them, always preferring to make do. He just didn't understand that there were some things in life a man simply should not accept. — Terry Brooks

Reynolds Lucius Wadsworth III was Waddy's real name, the result of a three-generation tradition of unparalleled cruelty in the naming of first-born boys. — Terry Brooks

Believe for long enough and it will come to pass. Believe it might be so, and it will be so. — Terry Brooks

Human minds are not equipped to face the realities of nonmaterial existence on this sphere. It is too much for any mortal to bear for long." Again — Terry Brooks

Obi-Wan's young face clouded. "Some secrets are best left concealed, Master." He shook his head. "Besides, why must you always be the one to do the uncovering? You know how the Council feels about these ... detours. Perhaps, just once, the uncovering should be left to someone else."
Qui-Gon looked suddenly sad. "No, Obi-Wan. Secrets must be exposed when found. Detours must be taken when encountered. And if you are the one who stands at the crossroads or the place of concealment, you must never leave it to another to act in your place. — Terry Brooks

Things change. Life changes. Nothing stays the same. — Terry Brooks

It's better to die in pursuit of your dreams than to live a life without hope. — Terry Brooks

And memories, he knew, were not glass treasures to be kept locked within a box. They were bright ribbons to be hung in the wind. — Terry Brooks

It's the age-old tale of complacency, Shea." The tall warrior sighed deeply and stretched as he rose. "We may be standing on the brink of the greatest war in a thousand years, but no one wants to accept the fact. Everyone gets in the same rut - let a few take care of the gates to the city while the rest forget and go back to their homes. It becomes a habit - depending on a few to protect the rest. And then one day ... the few are not enough, and the enemy is within the city - right through the open gates ... — Terry Brooks

We build too many walls to be honest with ourselves. -Allanon — Terry Brooks

[Y]ou have an inner strength that makes it possible for you to do things other people couldn't even begin to think of doing. — Terry Brooks

Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list. — Terry Brooks

if you wanted something done, it was never a good idea to rely on others. Others were never as committed to achieving your goals as you were. — Terry Brooks

Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves. — Terry Brooks

Might have, could have, may have, should have - the haves and have nots reduced to pointless possibilities. — Terry Brooks

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

Central governments have always been the greatest danger to mankind. Now there are none - small communities are the new rule of life. Some things are better left alone by everyone. — Terry Brooks

There is much to admire in Peter Brett's writing, and his concept is brilliant. There's action and suspense all the way. — Terry Brooks

Testing of self is a regular part of our own lives, so it seems natural to make it a part of the lives of my characters, as well, albeit on a much different level. — Terry Brooks

I remember one winter, when I was about five or six, I spent three days with another boy, tracking a bobcat that had been sighted in another county fifty miles away, but which I was sure had come into our neighborhood. — Terry Brooks

If I have the means, I have the responsibility to employ them. — Terry Brooks

I don't think any of us wanted most of what's been given to us these past few weeks. We didn't want any of it to happen. But it has. I think I understand what that means. It means we must exercise grace in the face of fear and doubt and loss of belief. It means we must understand that this is how life works - that it challenges us; it tests us. It gives us burdens to bear, and the measure of who we are is how we manage those burdens. — Terry Brooks

trained army. The — Terry Brooks

I want you, as a reader, to experience what I experience, to let that other world, that imaginary world that I have created, tell you things about the real world. — Terry Brooks

Fantasy is the only canvas large enough for me to paint on. — Terry Brooks

Events and circumstances sometimes conspire against us; if we insist on inflexibility for the purpose of maintaining our beliefs, we end up compromising ourselves nevertheless. We salvage one set of principles only to forsake another. — Terry Brooks

If you don't think there is magic in writing, you probably won't write anything magical. — Terry Brooks

Fear is a fire to temper courage and resolve. Use it so. — Terry Brooks

Fantasy writing must be grounded in both truth and life experience if it is to work. It can be as inventive and creative as the writer can make it, a whirlwind of images and plot twists, but it cannot be built on a foundation of air. The world must be identifiable with our own, must offer us a frame of reference we can recognize."
"Fantasy stories work because the writer has interwoven bits and pieces of reality with imagination to form a personal vision. — Terry Brooks

When she cried, he would say, there is nothing wrong with crying. Your feelings tell you who are. They tell what is important. Don't ever be ashamed of them. — Terry Brooks

What they didn't want to believe, what they tried repeatedly to dismiss, was that whatever good and evil existed in the world came from within themselves and not from some abstract source. — Terry Brooks

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

I want to kick-start your imagination and let you discover the places it can take you. — Terry Brooks

He wanted to tell himself or maybe even her that he would never understand women, but he had a feeling he wasn't the first man to formulate this opinion and very likely wouldn't be the last and that it really didn't matter anyway. — Terry Brooks

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 muse whispers to you when she chooses, and you can't tell her to come back later, because you quickly learn in this business that she might not come back at all. — Terry Brooks

History repeating itself, he thought. Lessons learned long ago so often needed to be learned all over again in the present. It might true here, and he might be the student who was being taught. — Terry Brooks