Best 184 quotes of Terry Goodkind on MyQuotes

Admitting that you do not know something is the first step to learning.

After that, I came back every year. Everyone said, 'Well, when you retire you can move there.' But I said, 'Why should I live my whole life where I don't want to be.'

Alone, he must bear the weight of a sin he dare not confess to the one person he loves…and has lost.

Are we our bodies? Is a small person less than a big person, then? If we were our bodies, then when we lost an arm, or a leg, would we be less, would we begin to fade from existence? No. We are the same person. We are not our bodies; we are our thoughts. As they form, they define who we are, and create the reality of our existence.

Being afraid something is true is accepting the possibility. Accepting the possibility is the first step to believing.

Boundary wardens, Zedd thought, were tougher than they had a right to be.

But emotions when based on valued things can be a faithful and consistant sum of truths.

But if used for retribution, magic is vengeance incarnate.

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.

Cara burst into a hearty laugh. She clapped Richard on the back as he walked passed. "I like her, Lord Rahl. You may keep her.

Celebrating faith over reason is merely a way of denying what is, in favor of embracing any whim that strikes your fancy.

Culture carries no privilege to exist. Cultures do not have value simply because they are. Some cultures, the world is better off without.

Dancing with death meant being committed to killing, committed with your heart and soul.

Do you hate me because I have magic?" "Of course not." "Do you love me despite my magic?" He thought a minute. "No. I love everything about you, and your magic is part of you. That was how I got past the Confessor's magic. If I had loved you despite your power, I wouldn't have been accepting you for who you are. Your magic would have destroyed me.

Emotions are the end result, the sum, of things learned

Emotions are the sums created by details, whether those details are true or not.

Enemies,' the wizard said, 'are the price of honour.

Even a foolish old woman like me knows that lazy people don't think for themselves; they only think about themselves.

Everybody knows it. Wizards are supposed to have beards. It's common knowledge.

Everyone has an effect on others. Some people inspire others to do great things. Some take people into crime with them. Those with the gift affect those around them even more.

Everyone makes mistakes. How a person deals with their mistakes is a mark of their character.

Everything is valuable under the right conditions. To a man dying of thirst, water be more precious than gold. To a drowning man, water be of little worth and great trouble.

Faith and feelings are the warm marrow of evil. Unlike reason, faith and feelings provide no boundary to limit any delusion, any whim. They are virulent poison, giving the numbing illusion of moral sanction to every depravity ever hatched. Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason’s light. Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life is wholly embraced through reason. In rejecting it, in rejecting reason, one embraces death.

Fantasy allows you bend the world and the situation to more clearly focus on the moral aspects of what's happening. In fantasy you can distill life down to the essence of your story.

Fate does not seek our consent.

He put the box in Kahlan's lap. As she picked it up, she gave him the biggest smile he had ever seen. Before he even knew what he had done, he had leaned over and given Kahlan a quick kiss. Her eyes went wide, and she didn't kiss him back, but the feel of her lips shocked him into realizing what he had done. Oh. Sorry," he said. She laughed. "Forgiven.

Her green eyes came unafraid to his. The connection was so intense that it threatened to drain his sense of self. He felt that he had always known her, that she had always been a part of him, that her needs were his needs.

Hesitation is a mistake that invites defeat. I would not be Mord-Sith had I not hesitated when I was young." - Cara

His face set in grim determination, Richard slogged ahead, his fingers reaching up to touch the tooth under his shirt. Loneliness, deeper than he had never known, sagged his shoulders. All his friends were lost to him. He knew now that his life was not his own. It belonged to his duty, to his task. He was the Seeker. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not his own man, but a pawn to be used by others. A tool, same as his sword, to help others, that they might have the life he had only glimpsed for a twinkling. He was no different from the dark things in the boundary. A bringer of death.

History is rarely made by reasonable men.

Honor is honesty to what is, not blind duty to what you wish to be.

I add my oath of protection to the bone,' he said in a whisper. 'To you now and to any child you may bear in the future. I would trade no day I spend with you for a life of safe slavery. I accepted the post of Seeker of my own free will. And if Darken Rahl takes the whole world into madness, then we will die with a sword in our hands, not chains on our wings. We will not allow it to be easy for them to kill us; they will pay a high price. We will fight with our last breath if need be, and in our death, let us inflict a wound on him that will fester until it claims him.

I am dead. Only vengeance can restore me! Only victory can return my life to me!

I felt like I'd been misplaced in the cosmos and I belonged in Maine.

If God is so powerful, can he create a rock which he cannot lift?

If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.

If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives, then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner.

If you care about yourself, you should care about learning - even learning simple things. You come to have pride in yourself only by accomplishing things, even from fixing some old stairs...Others can't grant you self-respect, even others who care about you. You have to earn self-respect yourself.

If you want to be a slave in life, then continue going around asking others to do for you. They will oblige, but you will find the price is your choices, your freedom, your life itself. They will do for you, and as a result you will be in bondage to them forever, having given your identity away for a paltry price. Then, and only then, you will be a nobody, a slave, because you yourself and nobody else made it so.

I had to live this long, have the experiences I've had, to create what I do. I knew I wanted to write for years, but I had to be ready so I wouldn't blow it. The move to Maine was the final step.

I hate telling that story to people who've been struggling for years.

I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.

I'm surprised you don't know more about magic, Sister Verna. There is a word that is magic. It can accomplish more than you might think. Maybe you have heard it before. It is the word 'please.

I never could understand why some writers treat women as helpless. Every woman I know is strong in her own unique way.

In the darkest hours we must believe in ourselves.

I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to find reason for hope, to find strength. While a bad book leaves readers with a sense of hopelessness and despair, a good novel, through stories of values realized, of wrongs righted, can bring to readers a connection to the wonder of life. A good novel shows how life can and ought to be lived. It not only entertains but energizes and uplifts readers.

It allows you to say things that sound very dramatic and get away with it. If you had characters in modern fiction say the same things as they're driving down the street in an Oldsmobile they'd sound ludicrous!

It does the sheep no good to preach the goodness of a diet of grass, if the wolves are of a different mind.

I thought I was going to die there, alone. I thought I would never see you again." He seemed to shake off the memory and leaned back on an elbow, gazing at her with a lop-sided smile on his face. "The Shadrin left some scars that aren't healed yet. But I would have to take off my pants to show them to you." "Really?" Kahlan gave a throaty laugh. "I think I better have a look... to see if everything is all right.

It isn't what kind of house you have that matters. This is not happiness. It's what kind of mind you have, and how you care for your fellow man -- what you can do to help others who can be helped by no one else.