David Eddings

“I wrote a novel for my degree, and I'm very happy I didn't submit that to a publisher. I sympathize with my professors who had to read it.”

“The stars were better company anyway. They were very beautiful, and they almost never snored.”

“I'm never going to be in danger of getting the Nobel Prize for literature.”

“All social workers want is to get everyone involved in a programme. Because a programme provides full employment for three generations of social workers. And they mess up.”

“I've fallen back on this periodically, although I must say that getting out of the grocery business ranked right up there with getting out of the army as one of the happier experiences of my life.”

“His stories were not always new, but there was in the telling of them a special kind of magic. His voice could roll like thunder or hush down into a zepherlike whisper. He could imitate the voices of a dozen men at once; whistle so like a bird that the birds themselves would come to him to hear what he had to say; and when when he imitated the howl of a wolf, the sound could raise the hair on the backs of his listeners' necks and strike a chill into their hearts like the depths of a Drasnian winter. He could make the sound of rain and of wind and even, most miraculously, the sound of snow falling.”

“The whole world is beautiful, Belgarion' Eriond assured him in response to that unspoken thought. 'You just have to know how to look at it”

“Keep working. Keep trying. Keep believing. You still might not make it, but at least you gave it your best shot. If you don’t have calluses on your soul, this isn’t for you. Take up knitting instead.”

“This is Trenicia, the queen of the warrior women of the Isle of Akalla. Different places have different traditions and different customs. On the Isle of Akalla, the women rule, and the women do the fighting.""What do the men do?" the horseman Ekial asked curiously."As little as they possibly can," the warrior woman said in a sardonic tone. "Over the years, they’ve foisted just about everything off on us. We have to grow the food, hunt the meat, and fight the wars. The men sit around getting fat and arguing with each other about something they call 'philosophy' - most of which is pure nonsense.”

“Don’t throw good ideas away until you’ve considered all of your options.”

“Sorgan tried his very best not to think about how long it must have taken for a stream that small to eat its way down through solid rock to form its current bed. Sorgan knew exactly what the word “hundred” meant, but when numbers wandered off toward “thousand”—or even “million”—and the people who used those terms were talking about years, Sorgan’s mind shied back in horror.”

“When they ran out of cadre men they gave me my very own platoon and said, 'Here are 63 men, try to keep as many of them alive as you possibly can.' That was one of the more harrowing experiences of my life.”

“It keeps him happy, Dahlaine, and happy people are nicer than gloomy ones. Haven't you noticed that before?”

“As long as I know that my motives are good, I'm Seldom very concerned with the opinions of others.-Mandorallen, Baron of Vo Mandor.”

“This is terrible, when a writer is bored by his own work, but it was a real bomb and had reached the point where I couldn't even stand to look at it any more.”

“A man should never miss an opportunity to keep his mouth shut.”

“The place had enormous possibilities. He realized that at once. The stream, of course, was perfect for sailing toy boats, for skipping stones, and, in the event of failing inspiration, for falling into. Several of the trees appeared to have been specifically designed for climbing, and one huge, white old birch overhanging the stream promised the exhilarating combination of climbing a tree and falling into the water, all at one time.”

“I'm a storyteller, not a prophet. I'm just interested in a good story.”

“It's all very well to put the government in the hands of the perfect man, but what do you do when the perfect man gets a bellyache?”

“These outlanders are peculiar, aren’t they?"Longbow smiled faintly. "They seem to think that we’re the peculiar ones. Their lives are very complicated, but we try our best to keep everything simple. I’m not sure exactly why, but that seems to offend them for some reason.”