Brandon O'bryant > Brandon's Quotes

“You view the gods as entities without," Montolio tried to explain. "You see them as physical beings trying to control our actions for their own ends, and thus you, in your stubborn independance, reject them. The gods are within, I say, whether one has named his own or not. You have followed Mielikki all your life, Drizzt. You merely never had a name to put on your heart.”
― R.A. Salvatore, Sojourn

“Sure, we'd faced some things as children that a lot of kids don't. Sure, Justin had qualified for his Junior de Sade Badge in his teaching methods for dealing with pain. We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something.

Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - gradutaing, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expecations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.”
― Jim Butcher

“Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice."

Constructive anger," the demon said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

Also known as passion," I said quietly. "Passion has overthrown tyrants and freed prisoners and slaves. Passion has brought justice where there was savagery. Passion has created freedom where there was nothing but fear. Passion has helped souls rise from the ashes of their horrible lives and build something better, stronger, more beautiful.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another person's hand can be. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally a part of our existence as human beings that its true impact upon us can be difficult to put into words. That power doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, either. From the time we are infants, we learn to associate the touch of a human hand with safety, with comfort, with love.”
― Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

“Cauthon lives," Arganda said. "And that's bloody amazing, considering that someone blew up his command post, set fire to his tenet, killed a bunch of his damane, and chased off his wife. Cauthon crawled out of it somehow."
"Ha!" Abell Cauthon said. "That's my boy.”
― Robert Jordan, A Memory of Light

“Those who take lightly promises they make to those they love are people who find little lasting satisfaction in life. This is not an easy time in which to live. That does not mean that it has to be a difficult time to love, but it does mean that you will find unusual stresses upon your lives and your relationship.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“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.”
― Terry Goodkind, Chainfire

“Molly, you are a good person. Don't let anyone take that away from you. Not even yourself.”
― Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

“The past was gone. Nothing could change what had already been. Looking back at it, letting its wounds fester, indulging in regret was just a different, slower way to die. The living moved forward.”
― Jim Butcher, Captain's Fury

“To live is to have worries and uncertainties. Keep them inside, and they will destroy you for certain--leaving behind a person so callused that emotion can find no root in his heart.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Elantris

“Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.”
― Jim Butcher, Vignette

“‎It isn't enough to stand up and fight darkness. You've got to stand apart from it, too. You've got to be different from it.”
― Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

“I've always felt that the best whips and chains are in the mind. With a little creativity, the physical ones are hardly necessary.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“Life is too short, Harry. And there's nowhere near enough joy in it. If you find it, grab it. Before it's gone.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“I mean, we're all going to die. We know that on an intellectual level. We figure it out when we're still fairly young, and it scares us so badly that we convince ourselves we're immortal for more than a decade afterwards.”
― Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

“Like “love,” “hope” is one of those ridiculously disproportional words that by all rights should be a lot longer.”
― Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

“It isn't good to hold on too hard to the past. You can't spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can't see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be—even if it isn't what you expected.”
― Jim Butcher, Death Masks

“You're such a cynic," Molly said.

"I think cynics are playful and cute.”
― Jim Butcher, Changes

“But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“The married thing. Sometimes I look at it and feel like someone from a Dickens novel, standing outside in the cold and staring in at Christmas dinner. Relationships hadn't ever really worked for me. I think it's had something to do with all the demons, ghosts, and human sacrifice.”
― Jim Butcher, Grave Peril

“By my love for you. I realized I loved you more than life itself, and I would rather give myself into your power than live without you. Nothing the magic could do to me could be worse than living without you. I was willing to give it all over to you. I offered the power everything I have. All of my love for you. Once I realized how much I loved you, I was willing to be yours on any terms. I understood that there could be nothing for the magic to harm. I’m already devoted to you; it didn’t need to change me. I was protected, because I have already been untouched by your love. I had utter faith that you felt the same, and had no fear of what would happen. Had I had any doubt, the magic would have latched on to that crack and taken me, but I had no doubt. My love for you is smooth and seamless. My love for you protected me from the magic.”
― Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule

“All things pass in time. We are far less significant than we imagine ourselves to be. All that we are, all that we have wrought, is but a shadow, no matter how durable it may seem. One day, when the last man has breathed his last breath, the sun will shine, the mountains will stand, the rain will fall, the streams will whisper—and they will not miss him.”
― Jim Butcher

“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.”
― Terry Goodkind

“Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“The sun has already set on the days we made those choices. We must concentrate on what we can do tomorrow; we can't relive yesterday.”
― Terry Goodkind

“We all can be only who we are, no more, no less.”
― Terry Goodkind, Stone of Tears

“Son. Everyone dies alone. That's what it is. It's a door. It's one person wide. When you go through it, you do it alone. But it doesn't mean you've got to be alone before you go through the door. And believe me, you aren't alone on the other side.”
― Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

“Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into the enemy’s strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don’t allow him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit."
-Richard Rahl”
― Terry Goodkind, Faith of the Fallen

“Me and polite have never been on close terms.”
― Jim Butcher

“What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”
― Jim Butcher, White Night