Sword of Truth

Memorable quotes from the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.

Insightful Quotes

• She retuned to Demmin Nass, who stood where he had been told to wait.

There were tears in his eyes. "Please, Mistress, command me."
Kahlan pulled a knife from his belt, ignoring his request. With her other hand, she unfastened the flanged battle mace from its hook. "Take off you pants." She waited until he had pulled them joff and stood once moree before her. "Kneel."
The coldness of her voice sent a shiver through Zedd as he watched the big man kneel before her.
"Spread your legs," she ordered in an icy voice. She reached down between his legs, gripping him in one hand. He flinched, grimaced. "Don't move," she warned. He became still. "How many of the little boys you've molested have you killed?"
"I don't know, Mistress. I don't keep count. I've done it for many years, since I was young. I don't always kill them. Most live."
"Make a good guess."
He thought a moment. "More than eighty. Less than one hundred twenty."
I'm going to cut these off. When I do, I don't want you to make a sound," she whispered. "Not one sound. Don't even flinch."
"Yes, Mistress."
"Look into my eyes. I wish to see it in your eyes."
Her arm with the knife strained, and jerked up. The blade came up red.
Demmin's knuckles around the mace were white.
The Mother Confessor rose to her feet in front of him. "Hold out your hand."
Demmin held a shaking hand before her. She put the bloody sack in his palm.
"Eat them." - Wizard's First Rule

• "The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality--it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard

• "oh, but how I do love it when men I respect marry smart women. Nothing marks a man's character better than his attraction to intelligence." -Ann

• ""Profit" is a dirty word only to the leeches of the world. They want it seen as evil, so they can more easily snatch what they did not earn." -Victor

• "We all can be only who we are, no more, no less." -Kahlan

• "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent." -Kahlan

• "There is no such thing as pure good or pure evil, least of all in people." -Zedd

• "Nothing is ever easy." -Zedd

• "Think of the solution not the problem." -Richard

• "When you are out numbered, and the situation is hopeless, you have no option-you must attack!" -Richard

• "Never let a beautiful woman pick your path when there is a man in her line of sight." -Kahlan

• "Fate does not seek our consent." -Zedd

• "Trouble sires three children." -Richard

• "The worse you are at thinking, the better you are at drinking." -Zedd

• "Don't shed tears for those already in the ground, until after you have brought vengeance to those who put them there. There will be time enough then." -Kahlan

• "Youth. Youth holds much hope, but not much wisdom. I know the ways of people. Of men. He has been gone too long from my skirts. He will have long ago forgotten me, and found another." -Verna

• "Third Time tricked, marks the fool." -Richard

• "History is rarely made by reasonable men." -Zedd

• "Don't worry about what might be...Worry about what is." -Zedd

• "Knowledge is a weapon. I intend to be formidably armed." -Richard

• "Sometimes that's all life is: one desperate act after another." -Zedd

• "You talk like a drunk man walks: in every direction but where he be headed." -Adie

• "Only a fool walks into the future backwards." -Commander General Trimack

• "People are stupid." -Zedd

• "One must observe before one acts, or more harm then help can be the result." -Drefan Rahl

• "Knowledge is a destination. Truth, the journey." -Zedd

• "In a land of blind people, a one-eyed woman could be queen." -Verna

• "There is magic in patience, you know." -Zedd

• "It does the sheep no good to preach the goodness of a diet of grass, if the wolves are of a different mind." - Nathan

• "Sometimes, in madness resides genius." - Richard

• "Love is a passion for life shared with another person." -Nicci

• "Zedd used to tell me that if the road is easy, you're likely going the wrong way." -Richard

• "Evil is not one large entity, but a collection of countless, small depravities brought up from the muck by petty men." - Richard

• "Everything is valuable under the right conditions. To a man dying of thirst, water be more precious than gold. To a drowning man, water be of little worth and great trouble." - Adie

• "It is the first responsibility of a friend to provide a shoulder to cry on." - Richard

• " Cut. Once committed to fight, Cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides this one. Cut." -Richard

• "Only those you trust can betray you." Nathan

• "He said that sometimes prophecy overwhelms our attempts to outwit it, and that sometimes we think we are more clever than we are, believing we can stay the hand of fate, if we wish it hard enough." Nathan

Humorous Quotes

• Nicci looked up at Kahlan . "Knives are not my talent."

"It's not hard," Kahlan said as she pressed the handle into Nicci's hand. "When the time is right, just stick the pointed end somewhere important in someone you really don't like."

• "Bags, woman, shall I tell them that it would be rather inconvenient for them to attack right now and to please come back to kill us later?" -Zedd

• "Stop looking so young and innocent all the time, Warren. It's just plain irritating." -Cara

• "Lord Rahl has very big hands. They fit perfectly over my breasts." -Mord-Sith Berdine

• "Well, my breasts aren't as large as yours, Berdine. I think Raina's hands would fit mine better." -Kahlan

• Zedd: "What's wrong with your leg?" Adie: "It not reach the ground. What be wrong with your eyes?"

• "Nathan bought himself a sword today. He is now fighting invisible monsters. He is a one thousand year old child." -Ann

• "The time for desperation is upon us. Let's play." -Zedd

• "If you get yourself killed trying to rule the world, I will personally break every bone in your body." -Cara

• "You want to be healed, now? Or would you prefer to bleed to death so I can try my hand at resurrection?" -Nathan

• "Lord Rahl told us to protect you as we would protect him. If you are not careful, Mother Confessor, and needlessly endanger Lord Rahl . . . I will withdraw my permission for Richard to keep you." -Cara

• "Why would you say that? I've been told that I'm a most pleasant traveling companion. Do we have any of that sausage left?" -Zedd

• "I have my wizards rock along. Could I interest you? Naked?" -Zedd

• "Well finally! We did everthing but to leave a note pinned to the hem of her dress that said, Oh by the way, the Prelate and the prophet are still alive, you dolt." -Nathan

• "Hurry up and torture me before I fall asleep and miss it." -Cara

• "You look funny without your pants." -Scarlet

• "The elders are becoming concerned. They would like to know when they can have their spirit house back." -Zedd

• "Come to me, brother wind! Gather about! Blow a gale for me! What's the matter with the two of you? Did you eat some bad berries?" -Richard

• "The last time I saw one of the boxes of Orden, it was open, and it was sucking my bastard father into the underworld." -Richard

• "Zedd, I'm tired of being dead." -Kahlan

• "You actually read the reports?!?" -Ann

• "Zedd has succumbed to a bout of loud cursing and arm flailing, he is swearing oaths about what he intends to do to Nathan, I am sure he will find most of his intentions physically impossible." - Ann

• "Lord Rahl, I know you like me the best, but stop thinking about my behind as I walk, and write your letter." - Berdine

• "I think you are bound and determined, one way or another, to have your clothes off in the spirit house." - Richard

• "You talk like a drunk man walks; in every way but where he be headed." - Adie

• "There can be powerful magic in acts of desperation." -Zedd

• "Teachings that defy reason defy reality; what defies reality defies life. Defying life is embracing deathe."- Richard

• "Zedd thought that Mord-Sith must strut, even when they were alone..."- Zedd

Memorable Quotes

• It was an odd-looking vine - First line of the Series

• "Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours." -Words to the D'Haran devotion

• "That be a lie." -Adie

• "Fair warning to those living and those dead! The Seeker is named!" -Zedd

• "I'll never look at an apple the same way again." -Richard

• "True as a boiling bog full of toasted toads." -Zedd

• "Grrrraaaaattttcch lllluuuugggg RRRaaaacccchhhhaaarrrgg." -Gratch

• "Dance with me death, for I am ready." -Richard

• "Gives a lot of orders for a woods guide." -Chase

• "I am the bringer of death, I have named myself so." -Richard

• "Zedd, what in the name of everything good is a seeker?" -Richard

• "You may find, Sister Verna, that holding the leash to this collar is worse then wearing it. Much worse." -Richard

• "Blade, be true this day." -Richard

• "Bags!" -Zedd

• "You are welcome to my sword when I am no longer breathing." -Richard

• "I am dead. Only vengence can restore me! Only victory can return my life to me!" -Kahlan

• "The problem with my eyes is that they have been famished, but now they are feasting." -Zedd

• "I am the Seeker. I can do anything." -Richard

• "Promise made . . . . Promise kept!" -Richard

• "And the truth is that you are a bastard son, of a bastard son, of a bastard son! And all of those bastard sons, all the way back, had the gift. Worse, Zedd has the gift. You have the gift, but it is from two blood lines of wizards. You are a very dangerous person, Richard Rahl. You have the gift. In this case, I would be more inclined to call it a curse." - Shota

• "To know Richard, is to know Kahlan." - Denna

• "And so they sent me, because I do." -Kahlan

• "What kind of plans would the Master Rahl have? I plan to conquer the world." -Richard

• "The beam in the central hall. I am sure of it." -Verna

• "As we Wizards go, I'm pretty harmless." -Zedd

• "Good-bye, Father Rahl. I trust you will die without my watching it" -Richard

• "I will give you war; a real war, not a slaughter of women and children but a war lead by me, the Mother Confessor, a woman! War without quarter!" - Kahlan

• "We will fight with our last breath if need be, and in our death, let us inflict a wound on him that will fester until it claims him." - Richard

• "Friends don't bargain away another friend's rights. Or their hearts." - Richard

• "We present Lord Rahl, the Seeker of Truth and wielder of the Sword of Truth, the bringer of death, the Master of D'Hara, the ruler of the Midlands, the commander of the gar nation, the champion of free people and bane of the wicked, and the betrothed of the Mother Confessor." - Berdine

• "Lunetta, I believe there is trouble. I believe the Creator is going insane." - Brogan

• Richard: "If you don't tell me where the Mother Confessor is, you are going to die."