Sea of Swords

Hindsight, I think, is a useless tool. We, each of us, are at a place in our lives because of innumerable circumstances, and we, each of us, have a responsibility (if we do not like where we are) to move along life's road, to find a better path if this one does not suit, or to walk happily along this one if it is indeed our life's way. Changing even the bad things that have gone before would fundamentally change who we are, and whether or not that would be a good thing, I believe, it is impossible to predict. So I take my past experiences... and try to regret nothing. -Drizzt Do'urden

We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope—nay, the iron will!—to find a memory in every action. To be alive, under sunshine or under starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance every step, be they through gardens of bright flowers or through deep snows.

We need to be reminded sometimes that a sunrise lasts but a few minutes. But its beauty can burn in our hearts eternally. —Drizzt Do’Urden

It is easy to miss the possibility that every person who crosses your path can become an event and a memory, good or bad, to fill in the hours with experience instead of tedium, to break the monotony of the passing moments.

So many times have I heard the common lament, “If only I could go back to that age, knowing what I now know!” Those words amuse me profoundly, for in truth, the lament should be, “If only I could reclaim the lust and the joy I knew then!

I have always found those who take the easier road, when they know they should be walking the more difficult one, to be cowards,” Robillard

A man who lives a lie will soon enough be consumed by it,

Though many would seek short cuts to the truth, there is no way around the simplest of tenets: hardship begets achievement and achievement begets joy—true joy, and the sense of accomplishment that defines who we are as thinking beings.

A place from which he should try to grow, and not one from which he should reflexively cower.

He embraced the awful memories. He brought them into his consciousness and examined them fully and rationally, telling himself that this was as it had been. Not as it should have been, but a simple reality of his past, a memory that he would have to carry with him.

I take my cue from Catti-brie and the other humans on this, and remind myself of the fuller road with every beautiful sunrise. The fewer the lost hours, the fuller the life, and a life of a few decades can surely, in some measures, be longer than a life of several centuries.

Hardly that! The path to joy is paved in a sense of confidence and self-worth, a feeling that we have made the world a little bit better, perhaps, or that we fought on for our beliefs despite adversity

the path to joy is not paved in gold, particularly in gold unearned.

So now I got a granddaughter from a son who’s not me own, and a daughter o’ his that’s not his own,” Bruenor said some time later, he and Drizzt having gone back to their respective drinks for a few reflective moments. “Ye’d think that one of us would’ve figured out that half the fun’s in makin’ the damn brats!

How else to explain the accomplishments of a warrior such as Artemis Entreri, who could outfight many drow veterans ten times his age?