There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

So yes. It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.

When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think.

Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.

The truth is that the world is full of dragons, and none of us are as powerful or cool as we’d like to be. And that sucks. But when you’re confronted with that fact, you can either crawl into a hole and quit, or you can get out there, take off your shoes, and Bilbo it up.

Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath.

It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to be itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true.

Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician’s curse.

Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.

There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way

It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

Stories only happen to people who can tell them.

It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.

Secrets of the heart. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.

Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.

There is nothing I can’t do writing in Fantasy. I can have romance, I can have mystery, I can have drama, I can have good characters – I can have everything you can do in any other genre… plus a dragon.

The cost of a loaf is a simple thing, and so a loaf is often sought, but some things are past valuing: laughter, land, and love are never bought.

You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while.

Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.

Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.

Could you help me catch the moon?” “I might be able to give you some advice,” the old man said reluctantly. “But first you should think this over, boy. When you love something, you have to make sure it loves you back, or you’ll bring about no end of trouble chasing it.

I wanted to tell her that she was the first beautiful thing I had seen in three years. That the sight of her yawning to the back of her hand was enough to drive the breath from me. How I sometimes lost the sense of her words in the sweet fluting of her voice. I wanted to say that if she were with me then somehow nothing could ever be wrong for me again.

All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.

Reading can almost be viewed as empathy training. Movies have better action scenes, sure. But books are uniquely suited to showing you the inside of another person’s head. That is the root of empathy. That’s the first step to understanding you’re not alone in the world.

I know,” she said. “You have a stone in your heart, and some days it’s so heavy there is nothing to be done. But you don’t have to be alone for it. You should have come to me. I understand.

I’ve waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are.

Anger can keep you warm at night, and wounded pride can spur a man to wondrous things.

It might not be true, but that doesn’t mean it’s nonsense.

You,” I said, “are sweet music in a distant room.

You can have an interesting story about a person living an interesting life. And if it’s done well, that is just as engaging as the end of the world. A million people dying – we can’t process. One person, we can process.

My parents danced together, her head on his chest. Both had their eyes closed. They seemed so perfectly content. If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you’re lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years.

Simmon pushed his hair out of his eyes, laughing boyishly. “You can’t argue your way out of this one! She’s obviously stupid for you. And you’re just plain stupid, so it’s a great match.

Caffeine helps a lot. That and a certain amount of isolation.

Small facts lead to great knowing.

If you fall, you fall,” Elodin shrugged. “Sometimes falling teaches us things too.” In dreams you often fall before you wake.

Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind’s way of protecting itself from pain.

Science is just magic with better PR.

Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.

The desire for knowledge shapes a man.

How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way

It is quite a thing. There are so many men, all endlessly trying to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me lest I fall.

You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.

But sometimes the best help a person can find is helping someone else.

Knowing your own ignorance is the first step to enlightenment.

Only a fool worries over what he can’t control.

Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man’s will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.