Terry Goodkind Quotes

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

...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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes, making the wrong choice is better than making no choice. You have the courage to go forward, that is rare. A person who stands at the fork, unable to pick, will never get anywhere.

I love you," she whispered. Richard pulled her tight against him. His fingers traced a trail down the bumps of her spine. "I feel so frustrated that there aren't any better words than "I love you,"" he said. "It doesn't seem enough for the way I feel about you. I'm sorry there aren't any better words to tell you." "They are words enough for me." "Then, I love you, Kahlan. A thousand times, a million times, I love you. Forever.

Never let a beautiful woman pick your path for you when there is a man in her line of sight

There is nothing that exists that has only one side. Even a piece of paper, thin as it is, has two sides.

Love is not about what you want. It's about finding happiness for the one you love.

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.

Do you hate me because I have magic?" "Of course not." "Do you love me despite my magic?" He thought a minute. "No. I love everything about you, and your magic is part of you. That was how I got past the Confessor's magic. If I had loved you despite your power, I wouldn't have been accepting you for who you are. Your magic would have destroyed me.

In the darkest hours we must believe in ourselves.

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.

Even a foolish old woman like me knows that lazy people don't think for themselves; they only think about themselves.

Once lucky, twice confident, and thrice dead.

The mice think they are right, but my cat eats them anyways. This is the point, reality is nothing, perception is everything.

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

Wizard's Tenth Rule Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self.

The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough.

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.

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.

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

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

I add my oath of protection to the bone,' he said in a whisper. 'To you now and to any child you may bear in the future. I would trade no day I spend with you for a life of safe slavery. I accepted the post of Seeker of my own free will. And if Darken Rahl takes the whole world into madness, then we will die with a sword in our hands, not chains on our wings. We will not allow it to be easy for them to kill us; they will pay a high price. We will fight with our last breath if need be, and in our death, let us inflict a wound on him that will fester until it claims him.

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

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.

Wizard's Fourth Rule There is magic in sincere forgiveness; in the forgiveness you give, but more so in the forgiveness you receive.

I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to find reason for hope, to find strength. While a bad book leaves readers with a sense of hopelessness and despair, a good novel, through stories of values realized, of wrongs righted, can bring to readers a connection to the wonder of life. A good novel shows how life can and ought to be lived. It not only entertains but energizes and uplifts readers.

Think of the solution, not the problem

...Wizard's Fifth Rule: Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.

We can't live our lives according to what might have been. We have to live by what is.

Those who have come here to hate should leave now; for in their hate, they only betray themselves.

Emotions are the end result, the sum, of things learned

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

Reality is irrelevant; Perception is everything.

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.

There is magic in sincere forgiveness - magic to heal.

Only a fool walks into the future backwards.