Top 500 Robert Jordan Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “Wounds to the pride are remembered long after wounds to the flesh.”

— Robert Jordan

452. “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

453. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

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

— Robert Jordan

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

— Robert Jordan

457. “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

458. “If you do not learn from your losses, you will be ruled by them.”

— Robert Jordan

459. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

461. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

463. “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.”

— Robert Jordan

464. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

466. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

468. “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

469. “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

470. “When you die, people begin to forget, who you were and what you did, or tried to do. Everybody dies eventually, and everybody is forgotten, eventually, but there’s no bloody point dying before your time comes.”

— Robert Jordan

471. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

473. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

475. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

477. “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

478. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

480. “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

481. “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

482. “Well, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

— Robert Jordan

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

— 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. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

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

— Robert Jordan

492. “Asha’man, kill!” -Mazrim Taim.”

— Robert Jordan

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

— Robert Jordan

494. “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

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

— Robert Jordan

496. “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

497. “Take what you want, and pay for it, the old saying went.”

— Robert Jordan

498. “What I love, I destroy, Lews Therin laughed. What I destroy, I love.”

— Robert Jordan

499. “You’ll use it, boy, and as long as you hate using it, you will use it more wisely than most men would.”

— Robert Jordan

500. “Stopping a man from what he wants to do is like taking a sweet from a child. Sometimes you have to do it, but sometimes it just isn’t worth the trouble.”

— Robert Jordan