“Often you don't know whether a woman is friend, enemy or lover until it is too late. Sometimes, she is all three.”
“One more dance along the razor's edge finished. Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.”
“We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.”
“Give me your trust, said the Aes Sedai.
On my shoulders I support the sky.
Trust me to know and to do what is best,
And I will take care of the rest.
But trust is the color of a dark seed growing.
Trust is the color of a heart's blood flowing.
Trust is the color of a soul's last breath.
Trust is the color of death.
Give me your trust said the queen on her throne,
for I must bear the burden alone.
Trust me to lead and to judge and to rule, and no man will think you a fool.
But trust is the sound of the grave-dog's bark.
Trust is the sound of betrayal in the dark.
Trust is the sound of a soul's last breath.
Trust is the sound of death.”
“Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made. Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades. What was asked is given; the price is paid.”
“What is too absurd to be believed is believed because it is too absurd to be a lie.”
“Kneel and swear to the Lord Dragon, or you will be knelt.”
“Burn you, Nerim, that's a leg not a bloody side of beef!"
"As my lord says," Nerim murmured. "My lord's leg is not a side of beef. Thank you, my lord, for instructing me.”
“Women do not become exhausted they only exhaust others.”
“The lions sing and the hills take flight. The moon by day, and the sun by night. Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool. Let the Lord of Chaos rule.
-chant from a children's game heard in Great Arvalon, the Fourth Age”
“Bashere shrugged, grinning brhind his grey-streaked moustaches, "When I first slept in a saddle, Muad Cheade was Marshal-General. The man was as mad as a hare in spring thaw. Twice every day he searched his bodyservant for poison, and he drank nothing but vinegar and water which he claimed was sovereign against the poison the fellow fed him, but he ate everything the man prepared for as long as I knew him. Once he had a grove of oaks chopped down because they were looking at him. And then insisted they be given decent funerals; he gave the oration. Do you have any idea how long it takes to dig graves for twenty-three oak trees?" "Why didn't somebody do something? His Family?" "Those not as mad as him, or madder, were afraid to look at him sideways. Tenobia's father wouldn't have let anyone touch Cheade anyway. He might have been insane, but he could outgeneral anyone I ever saw. He never lost a battle. He never even came close to losing.”
“Some said Delana was sucessful as a mediator because both sides would agree just to make her stop staring at them.”
“Belief and order give strength. Have to clear rubble before you can build.”
“Almost everyone stopped when he did, but Enaila and Jalani exchanged glances and kept on right past him toward the garden. He raised his voice a fraction and hardened it considerably more. “The Maidens here will come with me. Anyone who wants to put on a dress and discuss matchmaking can stay behind.”
..................................
Bashere motioned, and one of the younger Saldaeans loped ahead in that rolling stride of a man more used to a saddle. “A man must know when to retreat from a woman,” Bashere said to the air, “but a wise man knows that sometimes he must stand and face her.”
“Young men,” Bael said indulgently. “A young man chases shadows and runs from moonlight, and in the end he stabs himself in the foot with his own spear.” Some of the other Aiel chuckled, Maidens and Knife Hands alike. The older ones did.
Irritated, Rand looked over his shoulder again. “Neither of you would look well in a dress.” Surprisingly, the Maidens and Knife Hands laughed again, more loudly. Maybe he was getting a grip on Aiel humor.”
“Let most men have a finger and they will have the whole hand before you know. Let a clan cheif have a finger and he will have the entire arm.”
“Bound by the Oath against lying, Aes Sedai [carry] the half-truth, the quarter-truth and the implication to arts.”
“Until you can, remember this. We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.”
“Cheer the bull, or cheer the bear; cheer both, and you will be trampled and eaten.”
“People are people, low or high.”
“They will pay. I am the Lord of the Morning”
“What can’t be changed must be endured.”
“I told you to make weapons, Taim. Show me just how deadly they are. Disperse the Shaido. Break them.”
“At least Aielwomen did not walk around with their noses in the air, or think you should jump just because they said so. Of course, some of their games were on the rough side, and they did have the habit of trying to kill you now and again.”
“May we see the sun rise together, shade of my heart.”
“If the world is ending, a woman will want time to fix her hair. If the world’s ending, a woman will take time to tell a man something he’s done wrong.”
“We are going to tickle some Aes Sedai under the chin, rescue a mule, and put a snip-nosed girl on the Lion Throne. Oh, yes. That’s Aviendha. Don’t look at her crosswise, or she’ll try to cut your throat and probably slit her own by mistake.”
“Dance with her, and she will forgive much; dance well, and she will forgive anything”
“the world had to be faced as it was, not as you wished it to be”
“VI was predecessor to hundreds of word processing systems. By now, Unix folks see it as a bit stodgy—it hasn’t the versatility of Gnu-Emacs, nor the friendliness of more modern editors. Despite that, VI shows up on every Unix system.”
“If the modern world were a patient in my care...” She shook her head. “I would diagnose it suicidal.”
“Well hell. Her heart was melting and she'd never get the fickle organ back to a normal shape again.”
“That’s the wonderful thing about family: the bigger it is, the larger your heart grows.”
“You don't understand music: you hear it. So hear me with your whole body.”
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