Dan Stefanovich > Dan's Quotes

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“You've no right to walk into people's castles and take their guitars.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle

“But then again, there’s nothing intrinsically valuable about any kind of art. That’s not me complaining or making light. It’s one of the most wonderful aspects to art—the fact that people decide what is beautiful. We don’t get to decide what is food and what is not. (Yes, exceptions exist. Don’t be pedantic. When you pass those marbles, we’re all going to laugh.) But we absolutely get to decide what counts as art. If Yumi’s people wanted to declare that rock arrangements surpassed painting or sculpture as an artistic creation…well, I personally found it fascinating. The spirits agreed.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“Never let something trivial, like a sense of humor, get in the way of a good joke.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“You’d be surprised how common the name Doug is across worlds. Oh, some spell it ‘Dug’ or ‘Duhg’ but it’s always around. Regardless of local linguistics, parents eventually start naming their kids Doug. I once spent ten years on a planet where the only sapient sapient life was a group of pancake-like beings that expressed themselves through flatulence. And I kid you not, one was named Doug. Though admittedly it had a very distinctive smell when the word was “spoken”. Doug is the naming equivalent to convergent evolution. And once it arrives, it stays. A linguistic Great Filter; a wake up call. Once a society reaches peak Doug, it’s time for it to go sit in the corner and think about what it has done.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Belief?"
"Yes," Sazed said. "Tell me, Mistress. What is it that you believe?"
Vin frowned. "What kind of question is that?"
"The most important kind, I think.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“Worry has weight, and is an infinitely renewable resource. One might say worries are the only things you can make heavier simply by thinking about them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Do you know how many grand romances would have avoided tragedy if the hero had thought, "You know, maybe I should ask her if she likes me first"?”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Lem nodded. “It is. But a terrible idea executed brilliantly has to be better than a brilliant idea executed terribly. I mean, look at pelicans.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Plus, here’s the thing. A kiss doesn’t need to be good to be valuable. It doesn’t serve any real purpose. It’s valued solely because of the person you share it with. Things only have the value we give to them. And likewise, actions can be worth whatever we decide them to be worth. And so, to these two, that kiss was priceless.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I know you’re trying. That’s what matters.” Pay attention. At times, this is what heroism looks like.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“Have you thought of an ending?"
"Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant."
"Oh, that won't do! Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?"
"It will do well, if it ever came to that."
"Ah! And where will they live? That's what I often wonder.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“He is the Master of wood, water, and hill.’ ‘Then all this strange land belongs to him?’ ‘No indeed!’ she answered, and her smile faded. ‘That would indeed be a burden,’ she added in a low voice, as if to herself. ‘The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Of course, it is likely enough, my friends," he said slowly, "likely enough that we are going to our dooms: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Come, Mr. Frodo!' he cried. 'I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.”
― Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

“There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive.”
― Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

“When they're gone out of his head, these words, they'll be gone, everywhere, forever. As if they had never been.”
― Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

“No good digging your heels in, fighting for the old world when the old world's already gone. All you can do is live in the new world, however strange it might be. Try to make it a better place for the people who live in it.”
― Thomas D. Lee, Perilous Times

“To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?"

He stared at me, baffled. "Why the fuck would you do that?”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“What course am I to take?"

"Towards danger; but not too rashly, nor too straight.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“We have so much to say, and we shall never say it.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“Our knowledge of life is limited to death”
― Enrich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front