Top 500 Robert Jordan Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “Defying the Dark One no matter the length of his shadow. We will live, that defiance said. We will love and we will hope.”

— Robert Jordan

452. “If someone offers him enough gold, it becomes a toss of the dice, and not even Mat Cauthon could say how they’ll land.”

— Robert Jordan

453. “Feel it. Know it. Be it. You and the bud are the same. You are one. You are the bud.”

— Robert Jordan

454. “Wounds to the pride are remembered long after wounds to the flesh.”

— Robert Jordan

455. “It was easier to ask forgiveness, than permission.”

— Robert Jordan

456. “I’d run. But maybe you can’t run. Think of that, too.′ His yellow eyes seemed to look inward, and he sounded tired. ‘Sometimes you can’t run.”

— Robert Jordan

457. “He was as much a fool as any man or woman. He just had enough experience to recognize it. It took a few seasons before a man could put that together.”

— Robert Jordan

458. “You did not rise in the ships just through your ability to Weave the Winds or predict the weather or fix a position. You needed to read the intent that lay between the words of your orders, to interpret small gestures and facial expressions; you had to notice who deferred to whom, even subtly, for courage and ability alone took you only so high.”

— Robert Jordan

459. “The spine that refused to bend at all was often the most malleable once it gave way.”

— Robert Jordan

460. “Lan said the time to sound most sure was when you were least certain.”

— Robert Jordan

461. “Those intricate curves and patterns your people create are beyond human eyes and hands to make. Perhaps we wished to avoid a poor imitation that would only have been an ever-present reminder to us of what we had lost. There is a different beauty in simplicity, in a single line placed just so, a single flower among the rocks. The harshness of the stone makes the flower more precious. We try not to dwell too much on what is gone. The strongest heart will break under that strain.”

— Robert Jordan

462. “The Elders always said I spoke an hour before I thought.”

— Robert Jordan

463. “It was hard to explain to students that there was a rule that trumped all of the others: Always trust your instincts.”

— Robert Jordan

464. “Let most men have a finger and they will have the whole hand before you know. Let a clan cheif have a finger and he will have the entire arm.”

— Robert Jordan

465. “Let others know you possessed a secret, and some would work to learn it; that was a fact of nature.”

— Robert Jordan

466. “The whole day of Bel Tine would be taken up with singing and dancing and feasting, with time out for footraces, and contests in almost everything. Prizes would be given not only in archery, but for the best with the sling, and the quarterstaff. There would be contests at solving riddles and puzzles, at the rope tug, and lifting and tossing weights, prizes for the best singer, the best dancer and the best fiddle player, for the quickest to shear a sheep, even the best at bowls, and at darts.”

— Robert Jordan

467. “Asha’man, kill!” -Mazrim Taim.”

— Robert Jordan

468. “If you try putting a woman on a horse when she does not want to go, she may put a knife in your ribs.”

— Robert Jordan

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

— Robert Jordan

470. “Perrin suspected Lini was one of those women who saw her “place” as being in charge. Come to think of it, most women did. That was the way of the world, it seemed, not just the Two Rivers.”

— Robert Jordan

471. “They want to own the world, but it seems you already own a people.”

— Robert Jordan

472. “He expected the other man to be dead – not many could survive a thirty-foot fall to cobblestones with another’s weight on top of him – but what he had not expected was to see the fellow’s dagger driven to the hilt into his own heart. Such an ordinary-looking man to have tried to kill him. Mat did not think he would even have noticed him in a crowded room.”

— Robert Jordan

473. “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.”

— Robert Jordan

474. “When an officer runs by with a look like that on his face, you don’t ask if he needs help. You just follow!”

— Robert Jordan

475. “Death came for every man eventually, and seldom where or when he expected.”

— Robert Jordan

476. “Maybe if I smiled more when I made jokes, he thought idly, leaning against the side of the barricade. Then they’d understand what I meant. That, of course, raised the question: Did he want people to understand? It was often more amusing the other way. Besides, smiling was so garish.”

— Robert Jordan

477. “Most people were more willing to talk about fighting than to do it, especially against soldiers.”

— Robert Jordan

478. “Sometimes, it was difficult to tell Nynaeve leading from Nynaeve bullying.”

— Robert Jordan

479. “How long had he been doing what was necessary instead of what was right? In a fair world they would be one and the same.”

— Robert Jordan

480. “What are you two blathering about?” she said sharply. “Just things that men talk about,” Lan replied. “You wouldn’t understand,” Rand said.”

— Robert Jordan

481. “I don’t know. They could put up a warning sign or something. Hello. Welcome to Hindstrap. We will murder you in the night and eat your bloody face if you stay past sunset. Try the pies. Martna Maily makes them fresh daily.”

— Robert Jordan

482. “And I will not allow you to think that you make my decisions, or made them. I am myself, not an appendage to you. Now go away. I must finish these arrows if I am to have even a few shafts that will fly true. I do not mean to kill you, and I would not have it happen by accident.” Unstopping the glue pot, she bent over the table. “Do not forget to curtsy like a good girl on your way out.”

— Robert Jordan

483. “A woman would do a thing until you were sure she always would, then do something else just to fuddle you.”

— Robert Jordan

484. “Ragan gave him a guarded look that said he agreed with every word but strongly doubted Uno’s wisdom in voicing them. Ragan, it seemed, had the makings of a wise man in him.”

— Robert Jordan

485. “Everyone knew that, and not many stopped to think that anything that “everyone knew” deserved close examination. Being.”

— Robert Jordan

486. “There were more important uses for that time. One thing at a time, and the most important first. That was his way.”

— Robert Jordan

487. “She stood in one smooth motion, surprisingly pale where the sun not touch her, slender and hard-muscled, yet with roundnesses and softnesses that haunted his dreams.”

— Robert Jordan

488. “Some can do things others cannot,” Nandera said, as if that was enough explanation.”

— Robert Jordan

489. “Light’s truth, if you got a woman to feed you on a regular basis, she was halfway won.”

— Robert Jordan

490. “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.”

— Robert Jordan

491. “Continuity provides stability, and stability brings prosperity.”

— Robert Jordan

492. “Do what you must, and pay the price if you’re wrong. Sometimes if you are right, too.”

— Robert Jordan

493. “She probably told the thunder to be quiet. It probably did.”

— Robert Jordan

494. “More than once Nynaeve had been shocked at her own cruelty, even while she was delighted at her inventiveness.”

— Robert Jordan

495. “You bore a hole in the boat and worry that it’s raining.”

— Robert Jordan

496. “It is better to be the hammer than the nail.”

— Robert Jordan

497. “When a woman plays the fool, look for the man.”

— Robert Jordan

498. “Life is uncertainty and struggle, choice and change; one who knew how her life was woven into the Pattern as well as she knew how a thread was laid into a carpet would have the life of an animal. If she did not go mad. Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”

— Robert Jordan

499. “You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else.”

— Robert Jordan

500. “Which cliff did you choose? Pevara sent him. What? You said that when you were among the Sea Folk, they jumped off cliffs to prove their bravery. The higher the cliff, the braver the jumper. Which cliff did you choose? The highest, he admitted. Why? I figured that once you’ve decided to jump off a cliff, you might as well pick the highest one. Why accept the risk, if not for the greatest prize?”

— Robert Jordan