← Fantasy

The First Confessor

by Terry Goodkind · 2012

In the time before the Confessors, when the world is a dark and dangerous place, where treason and treachery are the rule of the day, comes one heroic woman, Magda Searus, who has just lost her husband and her way in life.

28 quotes ★ 4.20 (17,145) Fantasy

Quotes from the Book

We can't live our lives according to what might have been. We have to live by what is.
22
Standing for truth is everything. Truth is power. Don't ever forget that.
21
But in the end, we can’t live our lives by ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ We can only do the best we can to the best of our ability based on what we know. That’s why the truth is so important.
15
Cut the attacker down, to cut them down to their very soul
12
It's true that this is not a book you stick on a shelf. This is a story you will instead always carry in your heart.
9
The truth can seem awfully small and insignificant when compared to a mountain of lies.
8
History, like memories themselves, tended to become distorted with the passing of time, or worse, corrupted with the agendas of those writing it.
8
We can’t live our lives according to what might have been. We have to live by what is.
7
To love another, you must first love yourself. Love yourself, Magda, so you can love him. Love yourself enough to let your memories of me ease away from closing your heart. Love yourself enough to know that you deserve happiness." - Barracus
5
That is what we believe in and what we are fighting for. The right to the joy of life. The right to our own life. The right to love.
5
Surprise is sometimes the best advantage a warrior can have.
4
I know, Magda, your heart, and your loyalty to your love for me. But don’t let that be the end of your ability to love. That love wouldn’t harm me, or diminish me, or change what we had. It can only add to you and who you are. You need to embrace the reality of what is, not what was.
4
Safety is only an illusion when evil is on the hunt. I can’t stand by and watch. I have to act.
4
Thunder without sound jolted the air around her. The violence of it was magnificent, immaculate, glorious.
3
Though she was ungifted, she could clearly feel the power of the magic the sword now possessed. It was power unlike anything she ever imagined. It churned the way the storm had. It held more power than the storm had. It was fury and rage and love and life all folded together over and over, blending them into the finest layers of something new, something remarkable. This was now a weapon unlike any other, more than any other.
3
But the truth can seem awfully small and insignificant when compared to a mountain of lies.
3
It was a refined sort of bottled fury that had the potential to be devastatingly violent, and yet at the same time he was also a man able to control it.
3
Then you understand the wide range of the totally new and unexpected creations they can sometimes come up with. Most people’s minds travel along the same road traveled by everyone else, never straying off the route of conventional wisdom. Makers know no such boundaries. They have a rare ability to make their own roads of thought. Their minds venture through the wilderness of all that exists, combining random bits of knowledge in ways that have never been imagined before.
3
The power needs truth to work. Truth is reality, the laws of nature. They're inseparable. That relationship is represented by the word woven into the hilt. That makes this sword meant to serve more than just the power. It is also meant to serve the truth. This is the Sword of Truth.
2
War Wizards don't give up. They find a way around any obstacle, even if that way results in their own death. He called the way of the wizard the dance with death.
2
As it turns out, that persistence is a requirement. Thus, he would tell me, you need the dark to show the light, so you shouldn't curse darkness. You needed death to define life.
2
Fear triggers need, need powers sincerity. Sincerity is the required element.
2
But who I was, who you loved, no longer exists. I have passed on. In your world, only my memory can exist. Your loyalty to me because of that memory is a part of life, but it can become disloyalty to yourself if you hold it so closely that it crowds out the rest of life.
2
He had sometimes looked into her eyes and whispered to himself how bewitching she was, as if she weren’t there hearing him, as if he were all alone looking upon some exceptional specimen rather than his wife.
2
That smile might have been on his lips, but it was not in his eyes.
2
Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled.” She put her heart and soul into the words. “We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.
2
Emotion did not play a part in truth, only reality did.
2
People take history at face value and assume it's accurate, but often it really isn't. Accounts of past events differ. You don;t know the honesty or the motives of the person who wrote the chronicle. Accounts from antiquity may have been lost over time, leaving critical gaps that would change the picture. Some of what we do have may actually have been rumor or even false charges that over time were wrongly assumed to be true. Some historical accounts are biased or distorted viewpoints, while others were embellished along the way. It's a mistake to indiscriminately assume historical accounts are true.
1

About Terry Goodkind

We have collected 241 quotes from 12 books by Terry Goodkind on BookQuoters.

More about the author →

About the book

In the time before the Confessors, when the world is a dark and dangerous place, where treason and treachery are the rule of the day, comes one heroic woman, Magda Searus, who has just lost her husband and her way in life.

Book details

First published
2012
Genre
Fantasy
Goodreads rating
4.20 (17k ratings)

Keep reading