Quotes from Bearers of the Black Staff

Terry Brooks ·  353 pages

Rating: (8.3K votes)


“We are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, and no amount of education gleaned from our propensity for self-destruction and misguided thinking ever teaches us anything. Not anything that we remember for more than a generation or two.

I think maybe we learn a few things each time that we don't forget. A few things that stick with us. It's just hard to pass those things on to those who come after us because if they didn't live through it, they don't view it the same way we do. If you don't experience something firsthand, it's a lot harder to accept. Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff, p 89”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff


“And yet it had come to this: a cult that followed a dogmatic hard line of exclusion and repression, believed its teachings alone were the way that others must follow, and claimed special knowledge of something that had happened more than five centuries ago. It did nothing to soften its rigid stance, nothing to heal wounds that it had helped to create by deliberately shunning people of other Races, and nothing to explore the possibility of other beliefs. It held its ground even in the face of hard evidence that perhaps it had misjudged and refused to consider that it was courting a danger that might destroy everyone. p96”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff


“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, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff


“It is in the nature of things to want to believe that what's familiar and comfortable will last forever.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff


“Centuries of enlightenment and progress vanished virtually overnight because Men couldn’t find a way to use it wisely and purposefully.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff



“This isn’t something I had planned to talk about so soon,” her grandmother said as they entered the gardens. “I wanted to wait awhile longer to give you a chance to demonstrate that you were ready, that you had listened to what I told you about growing up and making mature decisions. I wanted you to season a little more. But we don’t always get what we want in this life. In fact, we don’t get what we want most of the time. We get compromises and settlements, half measures and tamped-down dreams. We get half a loaf baked, half a glass filled. That’s what we have here.”
Phryne nodded, having no idea what she was talking about. “That might be so, but we don’t have to like it.”
“We shouldn’t have to accept it, either. Mostly, we don’t. We understand the odds are against us, but we still strive for something more. We make our best effort each time out because now and then we get exactly what we want.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff


About the author

Terry Brooks
Born place: in Sterling, Illinois, The United States
Born date January 8, 1944
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Popular quotes

“I do not see how one who is an enemy of the gods can run fast enough away, nor where he can flee to escape, nor what darkness could cover him, nor how he could find a position strong enough for refuge. For all things in all places are subject to the gods, and the power of the gods extends equally over everything.”
― Xenophon, quote from The Persian Expedition


“Non vedi laggiù la stretta via
Così angusta, circondata da spine e da rovi?
E' il sentiero della Virtù,
Sebbene così pochi lo ricerchino.

E non vedi laggiù quell'ampia, ampia strada,
Che si snoda attraverso il campo di gigli?
E' il sentiero della Malvagità,
Sebbene alcuni lo chiamino la Via del Paradiso.

E non vedi laggiù un grazioso viottolo
Che serpeggia sull'erta tra le felci?
E' il sentiero verso la magica Terra degli Elfi
Dove tu e io questa notte avremo riposo.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, quote from The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays


“He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.

My mama warned me about guys like you.

He turned to her as if he’d heard her and took off his sunglasses, and she went down the steps to meet him, wiping her sweaty palms on her dust-smeared khaki shorts. “Hi, I’m Sophie Dempsey,” she said, flashing the Dempsey gotta-love-me grin as she held out her hot, grimy hand, and after a moment he took it.

His hand was clean and cool and dry, and her heart pounded harder as she looked into his remote, gray eyes.

“Hello, Sophie Dempsey,” her worst nightmare said. “Welcome to Temptation.”
― Jennifer Crusie, quote from Welcome to Temptation


“Only a crazy man could have made any sense of the events. I did not want to be crazy, and so I could not think seriously about these things or permit them to have meaning in my life.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Shaman's Crossing


“Well, hell,” muttered Drake. “Do you do that to all the human women?”

“No. Usually they’ve already started taking off their clothes by now. She’s beginning to hurt my feelings.”

“We need to get you a paper bag or a giant scar or something.”

“Yeah,” said the man, his tone dry. “I’ll get right to work on that”
― Shannon K. Butcher, quote from Burning Alive


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