Quotes from A Crown of Swords

“In a cruel land, you either learned to laugh at cruelty or spent your life weeping.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“If you don't know everything, you must go on with what you do know.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Life is a dream—that knows no shade.
Life is a dream—of pain and woe.
A dream from which—we pray to wake.
A dream from which—we wake and go.

Who would sleep—when the new dawn waits?
Who would sleep—when the sweet winds blow?
A dream must end—when the new day comes.
This dream from which—we wake and go.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow, for the land is one with the Dragon Reborn and he one with the land. Soul of fire, heart of stone, in pride he conquers, forcing the proud to yield. He calls upon the mountains to kneel, and the seas to give way, and the very skies to bow. Pray that the heart of stone remebers tears, and the soul of fire, love.

-From a much-disputed translation of The Prophecies of the Dragon by the poet Kyera Termendal, of Shiota, believed to have been published between FY 700 and FY 800”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Only a fool thinks a lion or a woman can truly be tamed.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“A woman would do a thing until you were sure she always would, then do something else just to fuddle you.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“...Oh, kiss a flaming goat if I know what I mean.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“I thought you were dead,” Bera breathed.
Cadsuane sniffed irritably. “I am growing tired of hearing that. The next imbecile I hear it from is going to yelp for a week.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Sometimes it amazed him. Lanky Thom with his white hair and mustaches, who had been a Queen’s lover once, and more willingly than himself, not to mention more than a lover, if you believed half he said. Square-jawed Harnan with that tattoo on his cheek and more elsewhere, who had been a soldier all his life. Juilin with his bamboo staff and his sword-breaker on his hip, who thought himself as good as any lord even if the idea of carrying a sword himself still made him uneasy, and fat Vanin, who made Juilin look a bootlicker by comparison. Skinny Fergin, and Gorderan, nearly as wide in the shoulders as Perrin, and Metwyn, whose pale Cairhienin face still looked like a boy’s despite being years older than Mat. Some of them followed Mat Cauthon because they thought he was lucky, because his luck might keep them alive when the swords were out, and some for reasons he was not really sure of, but they followed. Not even Thom had ever more than protested an order of his. Maybe Renaile had been more than luck. Maybe his being ta’veren did more than dump him in the-middle of trouble. Suddenly he felt... responsible... for these men. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Mat Cauthon and responsibility did not go together. It was unnatural.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Usually when a woman was in the wrong, she could find so many things to blame on the nearest man that he wound up thinking maybe he really was at fault.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“And for some reason, men and women who told the tale often found a need to add almost identical words. The storm is coming, they said, staring southward in worry. The storm is coming.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“A girl or a fight, pouting lips or a flashing blade. Whichever dance you're dancing at the moment is always the most fun. Wouldn't you say?”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“The trumpets of war shall sound at his footsteps, the ravens feed at his voice, and he shall wear a crown of swords.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Great diggings and foundations spread across what had been the Warders’ practice yard, tall wooden cranes and stacks of cut marble and granite. Masons and laborers swarmed over the workings like ants, and endless streams of wagons trailed through the gates onto the Tower grounds, bringing more stone. To one side stood a wooden “working model,” as the masons called it, big enough for men to enter crouching on their heels and see every detail, where every stone should go. Most of the workmen could not read, after all—neither words nor mason’s drawn plans. The “working model” was as large as some manor houses.
When any king or queen had a palace, why should the Amyrlin Seat be relegated to apartments little better than those of many ordinary sisters? Her palace would match the White Tower for splendor, and have a great spire ten spans higher than the Tower itself. The blood had drained from the chief mason’s face when he heard that. The Tower had been Ogier-built, with assistance from sisters using the Power. One look at Elaida’s face, however, set Master Lerman bowing and stammering that of course all would be done as she wished. As if there had been any question.
Her mouth tightened with exasperation. She had wanted Ogier masons again, but the Ogier were confining themselves to their stedding for some reason. Her summons to the nearest, Stedding Jentoine, in the Black Hills, had been met with refusal. Polite, yet still refusal, without explanation, even to the Amyrlin Seat.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“The woman [Cadsuane] looked at the battered tea things as if she had all the time in the world. “Now you know,” she said at last, calm as ever, “that I know your future, and your present. The Light’s mercy fades to nothing for a man who can channel. Some see that and believe the Light denies those men. I do not. Have you begun to hear voices, yet?”
“What do you mean?” he asked slowly. He could feel Lews Therin listening.
[...]
“Some men who can channel begin to hear voices.” She spoke almost absently, frowning at the flattened sphere of silver and gold. “It is a part of the madness. Voices conversing with them, telling them what to do.” The teapot drifted gently to the floor by her feet. “Have you heard any?”
[...]
“I will ask the questions,” Rand said firmly. “You seem to forget. I am the Dragon Reborn.” You are real, aren’t you? he wondered. There was no answer. Lews Therin? Sometimes the man did not answer, but Aes Sedai always drew him. Lews Therin? He was not mad; the voice was real, not imagination. Not madness. A sudden desire to laugh did not help.
Cadsuane sighed. “You are a young man who has little idea where he is going or why, or what lies ahead. You seem overwrought. Perhaps we can speak when you are more settled. Have you any objection to my taking Merana and Annoura away for a little while? I’ve seen neither in quite some time.”
Rand gaped at her. She swooped in, insulted him, threatened him, casually announced she knew about the voice in his head, and with that she wanted to leave and talk with Merana and Annoura? Is she mad? Still no answer from Lews Therin. The man was real. He was!
“Go away,” he said. “Go away, and...” He was not mad. “All of you, get out! Get out!”
[...] Finally they were all gone, and he was alone. Alone.
Convulsively he hurled the Dragon Scepter. The spear-point stuck quivering in the back of one the chairs, the tassels swaying.
“I am not mad,” he said to the empty room. Lews Therin had told him things; he would never have escaped Galina’s chest without the dead man’s voice. But he had used the Power before he ever heard the voice; he had figured out how to call lightning and hurl fire and form a construct that had killed hundreds of Trollocs. But then, maybe that had been Lews Therin, like those memories of climbing trees in a plum orchard, and entering the Hall of the Servants, and a dozen more that crept up on him unawares. And maybe those memories were all fancies, mad dreams of a mad mind, just like the voice.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Some can do things others cannot,” Nandera said, as if that was enough explanation.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“If you don’t know everything, you must go on with what you do know,”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“An enemy who comes once, will come again. Unless they are stopped. My”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“he had grown up in the unspoken certainty that a man would put himself at risk to protect a woman as far she allowed; whether he liked her or even knew her was beside the point.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“It’s always a man’s fault.” One”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Men kept sticking their hands in the fire thinking this time it would not burn, so”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“The weak must be bold cautiously.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“In a cruel land, you either learned to laugh at cruelty or spent your life weeping;”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Or maybe you think you aren’t worth loving? Is”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Usually when a woman was in the wrong, she could find so many things to blame on the nearest man that he wound up thinking maybe he really was at fault. In”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“No one was ever simply anything,”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“The spine that refused to bend at all was often the most malleable once it gave way.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

“Only a fool thinks a lion or a woman can truly be tamed. Irritably,”
― Robert Jordan, quote from A Crown of Swords

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