Quotes from Robert Jordan

Execution is everything. Even if you start a business with the wrong idea or too many competitors, you can out-execute all the better ideas in the right market.

Domon would learn; even when a woman needed help, if she did not want it, she made you pay for giving it.

First things first; take care of what can be done now before worrying too long over what might never be.

When you have never known a thing except to dream, it becomes more than a talisman.

At least Aielwomen did not walk around with their noses in the air, or think you should jump just because they said so. Of course, some of their games were on the rough side, and they did have the habit of trying to kill you now and again.

He hadn't asked to become a leader, but did that absolve him of responsibility? People needed him. The world needed him. And, with an understanding that cooled in him like molten rock forming into a shape, he realized that he wanted to lead. If someone had to be lord of these people, he wanted to do it himself. Because doing it yourself was the only way to see that it was done right.

The Elders always said I spoke an hour before I thought.

The roar behind him was louder than anything he had ever heard in his life; a monstrous fist punched him in the back, knocking all the wind out of him even before he landed, sprawled on his belly on the wall top, barely holding on to his staff as it swung over the edge.

They were high up. If he fell, he'd have time to hum three verses of She Has No Ankles That I Can See before he hit. Maybe an extra round of the chorus.

Usually when a woman was in the wrong, she could find so many things to blame on the nearest man that he wound up thinking maybe he really was at fault.

Small hopes can grow surprising fruit.

Whitecloak Questioners assume you're guilty before they start, and they have only one sentence for that kind of guilt. They don't care about finding the truth; they think they know that already. All they go after with their hot irons and pincers is a confession. Best you remember some secrets are too dangerous for saying aloud, even when you think you know who hears.

When we Shienarans ride, every man knows who is next in line if the man in command falls. A chain unbroken right down to the last man left, even if he's nothing but a horseholder. That way, you see, even if he is the last man, he is not just a straggler running and trying to stay alive. He has the command,and duty calls him to do what must be done. If I go to the last embrace of the mother, the duty is yours. You will find the Horn, and you will take it where it belongs. You will.

Beauty flees,"[...]Will you no longer be you? Your body is only clothing. Your flesh will wither, but you are your heart and mind, and they do not change except to grow stronger.

If you boys... you men can do what has to be done when you'd rather do almost anything else, why do you think I will do less? Or Egwene

If you tried to solve every problem yourself, you ended by solving none.

Keep fighting, you daughters and sons of goats!" Birgitte yelled, loosing arrows at the mercenaries. "I might be dead, but I'm still your bloody commander, and you will obey orders!

And so we begin the game that cannot be won," Thom said, sliding the knife back into its sheath. "Courage to strengthen," Noal whispered, stepping forward, holding up a lantern with a flickering flame. "Fire to blind. Music to dazzle. Iron to bind." "And Matrim Cauthon," Mat added. "To bloody even the odds." He stepped through the doorway. Light

You got further plucking the chicken in front of you than trying to start on one up a tree. Especially when the tree was in another country and there might not even be another chicken.

Tuon looked at him, squatting there by the map, moving his fingers over its surface, and suddenly she saw him in a new light. A buffoon? No. A lion stuffed into a horse-stall might look like a peculiar joke, but a lion on the high plains was something very different. Toy was loose on the high plains, now. She felt a chill. What sort of man had she entangled herself with? After all this time, she realized, she had hardly a clue.

Defying the Dark One no matter the length of his shadow. We will live, that defiance said. We will love and we will hope.

Limping to the foot of the bed, he lowered himself into the chest there and laid Callandor across his knees, bloody hands resting on the glowing blade. With that in his hands, even one of the Forsaken would fear him. In a moment he would send for Moiraine to Heal his wounds. In a moment he would speak to the Aiel outside, and become the Dragon Reborn again. But for now, he only wanted to sit, and remember a shepherd named Rand al'Thor.

A useful maxim: two rarities combined call for close attention.

You're not my enemy, but your Empire is.