Home > Work > Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1) QUOTES

Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1) QUOTES

1 " And yet it had come to this: a cult that followed a dogmatic hard line of exclusion and repression, believed its teachings alone were the way that others must follow, and claimed special knowledge of something that had happened more than five centuries ago. It did nothing to soften its rigid stance, nothing to heal wounds that it had helped to create by deliberately shunning people of other Races, and nothing to explore the possibility of other beliefs. It held its ground even in the face of hard evidence that perhaps it had misjudged and refused to consider that it was courting a danger that might destroy everyone. p96 "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

2 " But knowing it and accepting it are two different things. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

3 " He still doesn’t know how life can turn you around and twist you about and do with you what it will. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

4 " (...) was a long time ago, Sider, and now it’s just old stories. We live in the here and now, not the past. But the present’s not so good, either. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

5 " We are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, and no amount of education gleaned from our propensity for self-destruction and misguided thinking ever teaches us anything. Not anything that we remember for more than a generation or two.

I think maybe we learn a few things each time that we don't forget. A few things that stick with us. It's just hard to pass those things on to those who come after us because if they didn't live through it, they don't view it the same way we do. If you don't experience something firsthand, it's a lot harder to accept. Terry Brooks, Bearers of the Black Staff, p 89 "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

6 " She had grown to accept unpleasantness as a part of life rather than to struggle futilely against truths that could not be changed. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

7 " It is in the nature of things to want to believe that what's familiar and comfortable will last forever. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

8 " Centuries of enlightenment and progress vanished virtually overnight because Men couldn’t find a way to use it wisely and purposefully. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

9 " This isn’t something I had planned to talk about so soon,” her grandmother said as they entered the gardens. “I wanted to wait awhile longer to give you a chance to demonstrate that you were ready, that you had listened to what I told you about growing up and making mature decisions. I wanted you to season a little more. But we don’t always get what we want in this life. In fact, we don’t get what we want most of the time. We get compromises and settlements, half measures and tamped-down dreams. We get half a loaf baked, half a glass filled. That’s what we have here.”
Phryne nodded, having no idea what she was talking about. “That might be so, but we don’t have to like it.”
“We shouldn’t have to accept it, either. Mostly, we don’t. We understand the odds are against us, but we still strive for something more. We make our best effort each time out because now and then we get exactly what we want. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

10 " When he woke, the sun was cresting the horizon of jagged mountain peaks in a wash of crimson light and he was bathed in his own sweat. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

11 " But the pain and his memories of what had brought him to this state helped speed his efforts, and mustering what strength of body and will he could, he dragged himself back into consciousness. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

12 " Power corrupts, and if not watched carefully, if not kept under control, it will come to dominate the user. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

13 " We’re all stuck in this world, and none of us made it the way it is. We don’t like much about it, and I think if you want to live in it with some sense of responsibility, you have to find ways to keep it this side of becoming too insane. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

14 " It is important to accept truths, even when they are inconvenient. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

15 " We shouldn’t have to accept it, either. Mostly, we don’t. We understand the odds are against us, but we still strive for something more. We make our best effort each time out because now and then we get exactly what we want. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

16 " The echo of birdcalls was sharp and ghostly, sounding out of the silence in forlorn reverberation across the wider expanse of the lakes before disappearing into the dark maze of the surrounding woods. Mist clung in thick blankets to the mountaintops. The air was sharp and clear, and you could see the details of clefts in the rocks of snow-cropped defiles that were miles away. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

17 " Panterra Qa was sleeping, rolled up in his blanket, assailed by troubling dreams that ate away at his rest like termites did wood. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

18 " But nothing was permanent; all things must change. And no matter the beliefs of some and the wishes of others, life had a way of surprising you. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

19 " Those they passed nodded politely or said hello, safe in the knowledge that all was right with the world, oblivious to the truth. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)

20 " There is no objective scale by which to measure truth when that truth is not written down. "

― Terry Brooks , Bearers of the Black Staff (Legends of Shannara, #1)