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Robert Jordan Quotes
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James Oliver Rigney Jr. , better known by his pen name Robert Jordan, was an American author of epic fantasy. He is best known for the Wheel of Time series, which was finished by Brandon Sanderson upon Jordan's death, which comprises 14 books and a prequel novel. He is one of several writers to have written original Conan the Barbarian novels; his are highly acclaimed to this day. Rigney also wrote historical fiction under his pseudonym Reagan O'Neal, a western as Jackson O'Reilly, and dance criticism as Chang Lung. Additionally, he ghostwrote an "international thriller" that is still believed to have been written by someone else. Wikipedia  

✵ 17. October 1948 – 16. September 2007  •  Other names جيمس أوليفر ريجني, رابرت جوردن
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Robert Jordan: 305 quotes16 likes

Robert Jordan Quotes

“Men always seem to refuse to admit they are sick until they’re sick enough to make twice as much work for women. Then they claim they’re well too soon, with the same result.”

Robert Jordan

Siuan Sanche
(15 October 1991)

“Cheer the bull, or cheer the bear; cheer both, and you will be trampled and eaten.”

Robert Jordan

Old saying in Randland
(15 October 1994)

“Caution once forgotten could be forgotten once too often.”

Robert Jordan

Nynaeve al'Meara
(15 October 1994)

“I trust you like a brother. Until the day you betray me. You have a parole for what you’ve done, in return for your teaching, and a better bargain than you deserve, but the day you turn against me, I will tear it up and bury it with you.”

Robert Jordan

Rand al'Thor to Asmodean
(15 October 1993)

“The Wheel of Time and the wheel of a man's life turn alike without pity or mercy.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

“When a young woman's cheeks redden for no apparent reason, there is usually a man involved.”

Robert Jordan

Sorilea to Egwene al'Vere
(15 October 1994)

“I may be a fool, but I intend to be a live fool.”

Robert Jordan

Matrim Cauthon
(15 November 1990)

“The best lie is often one too ridiculous to be taken for a lie.”

Robert Jordan

Morgase Trakand
(15 January 1990)

“It was easier to trip a fool than to knock him down.”

Robert Jordan

Moiraine Damodred
(15 October 1993)

“Soon comes the day all shall be free. Even you, and even me. Soon comes the day all shall die. Surely you, but never I.”

Robert Jordan

Padan Fain
(15 November 1990)

“Only the dead could afford oblivion.”

Robert Jordan

Source: (January 2004), Chapter 1: The Hook. p. 5

“Nothing ever goes as you expect. Expect nothing, and you will not be surprised. Expect nothing. Hope for nothing. Nothing.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

“What I love I destroy. What I destroy, I love.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

“No man should have another man's voice in his head.”

Robert Jordan

Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)

“The only way to live is to die. I must die. I deserve only death.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

“There was a price to be paid for any decision he made. There was a price for who he was. Other people paid it.”

Robert Jordan

Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)

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

Robert Jordan

Sorilea
(15 October 1994)

“Dance well with a woman, and she’s halfway yours.”

Robert Jordan

Matrim Cauthon
(15 October 1994)

“The arrogance of men never ceases to amaze me. You all think everything has to do with you, and every woman has to desire you.”

Robert Jordan

Min Farshaw
(15 October 1991)

“Pride fills me. I am sick with the pride that destroyed me.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

“I thought I could build, I was wrong. We are not builders, not you, or I, or the other one. We are destroyers. Destroyers.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon to Rand
(9 November 2000)

“The boy was dead eager, which could soon lead to plain dead.”

Robert Jordan

Mat, about Olver
(11 October 2005)

“How people see you first is what they hold hardest in their minds. It is the way of the world. You can step down from a throne], and even if you behave like a farmer in a pigsty, some part in each of them will remember that you did descend from a throne. But if they see only a young man first, a country man, they will resent him stepping up to his throne later, whatever his right, whatever his power.”

Robert Jordan

Moiraine Damodred
(15 October 1994)

“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

Aviendha to Matrim Cauthon
(15 October 1994)

“If you fell head first into a pigsty, you'd try to convince everybody you did it on purpose.”

Robert Jordan

Egwene al'Vere to Nynaeve al'Meara
(15 October 1993)

“A fool puts a burr under the saddle before she rides.”

Robert Jordan

Lini
(15 October 1993)

“No wine for me. Strange enough things happen when my head is clear. I want to know the difference.”

Robert Jordan

Matrim Cauthon
(15 September 1992)

“The road ahead of you is long, dark, and, I very much fear, bloodstained. I also very much fear that you will take us all down that road. But you must live to reach the end of it.”

Robert Jordan

Elder Haman to Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)

“The yellowfly is almost too small to see, but if you leave its egg in your skin, you will lose an arm or leg before it hatches - if it does not kill you.”

Robert Jordan

Rhuarc
(15 October 1994)

“The fox often offers the duck its pond.”

Robert Jordan

Two Rivers saying
(15 October 1993)

“There are things worth fighting for.”

Robert Jordan

Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)

“Teach him how you will, a pig will never play the flute.”

Robert Jordan

Thom Merrilin
(15 January 1990)

“Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”

Robert Jordan

Amys
(15 September 1992)

“It is better to guide people than try to hammer them into a line.”

Robert Jordan

Morgase Trakand
(15 September 1992)

“We all have our limits. And we set them further out than we have any right.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1993)

“The only man completely at peace is a man without a navel.”

Robert Jordan

Old saying in Randland
(15 October 1994)

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

Robert Jordan

Verin Mathwin
(15 October 1994)

“In the Borderlands, sheepherder, if a man has the raising of a child, that child is his, and none can say different.”

Robert Jordan

al'Lan Mandragoran to Rand al'Thor
(15 November 1990)

“Men fight when they should run, and fools fight when they should run. But I had no need to say it twice.”

Robert Jordan

Faile Bashere
(15 October 1991)

“You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway.”

Robert Jordan

Lan Mandragoran
(9 November 2000)

“Men always believe they are in control of everything around them. When they find out they are not, they think they have failed, instead of learning a simple truth women already know.”

Robert Jordan

Aviendha
(15 October 1993)

“Fall in love with a man, and you end up doing laundry, even if it does belong to another man.”

Robert Jordan

Min Farshaw
(15 October 1993)

“Do you know how to unite the people behind you, Child Carridin? The quickest way? Loose a lion - a rabid lion - in the streets. And when panic grips the people, once it has turned their bowels to water, calmly tell them you will deal with it. Then you kill it, and order them to hang the carcass up where everyone can see. Before they have time to think, you give another order, and it will be obeyed. And if you continue to give orders, they will continue to obey, for you will be the one who saved them, and who better to lead?”

Robert Jordan

Pedron Niall
(15 October 1991)

“Never prod at a woman unless you must. She will kill you faster than a man and for less reason, even if she weeps over it after.”

Robert Jordan

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

“We can't go back, Mat. The Wheel has turned, for better or worse. And it will keep turning, as lights die and forests dim, storms call and skies break. Turn it will. The Wheel is not hope, and the Wheel does not care, the Wheel simply is. But so long as it turns, folk may hope, folk may care. For with light that fades, another will eventually grow, and each storm that rages must eventually die. As long as the Wheel turns. As long is it turns….”

Robert Jordan

Thom Merrilin, quoting an ancient song
(27 October 2009)

“The louder a man tells you he’s honest, the harder you must hold onto your purse.”

Robert Jordan

Two Rivers saying
(15 October 1993)

“If I could find a way to escape my destiny, do I deserve to?”

Robert Jordan

Rand al'Thor
(15 October 1994)

“A man should never give promises in bed.”

Robert Jordan

Rand al'Thor
(11 October 2005)

“[Aviendha] didn't trust change. It couldn't be spotted or stabbed; it was more silent than any scout, more deadly than any assassin. No, she'd never trust it, but she would accept it.”

Robert Jordan

(27 October 2009)