Lessons From Fantasy

"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution." 

“We must be what we are, or we become our enemies.”  

“How we remember changes how we have lived. Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.”

From 'Under Heaven' by Guy Gavriel Kay

“We cannot build the future by avenging the past.”

“A span of a few heartbeats can make for a greater memory than the sum of a mundane year."

“That which yields is not always weak.”

From 'Kushiel's Dart' by Jaqueline Carey 

“But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.”

“Thus is it spoken: Oft hope is born, when all is forlorn.”

From 'The Return of the King' by J. R. R. Tolkien

“Evil is relative…You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.” (From 'The Black Company' by Glen Cook)

“When you expect nothing from the world - not the light of the sun, the wet of water, nor the air to breathe - everything is a wonder and every moment a gift.”

(From 'Percepliquis' by Michael J. Sullivan)

“Words can never fully say what we want them to say, for they fumble, stammer, and break the best porcelain. The best one can hope for is to find along the way someone to share the path, content to walk in silence, for the heart communes best when it does not try to speak.” (From 'Dragons of a Lost Star' by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman)

“How many people long for that 'past, simpler, and better world,' I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?” (From 'Streams of Silver' by R. A. Salvatore)

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.” (From 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card)

“Happiness is the highest form of wisdom.” (From 'Kushiel's Mercy' by Jacqueline Carey)