Stephen R. Donaldson

“Only the insecure strive for security.”

“Despair is the only genuine unforgivable sin.”

“Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.”

“Hope is the one thing that can't be taken from us.”

“That was the thing about courage: it was never a given. It had to be earned, over and over again.”

“Real power has nothing to do with smashing people into submission, and everything to do with reaching consensus.”

“Madness is the absolute break with objective reality.”

“Stories are the only things that last. They are the only things that give us a chance to be immortal.”

“The first rule of being a hero is you have to be brave.”

“When you're a writer, you're always a writer. It's not a switch you can turn off.”

“Power is in the end a question of leverage.”

“The choice is not to believe, but to act as if you believe. That is the only way to gain belief.”

“Perhaps this is what it means to be a man - to be broken by the one you love.”

“He did not know what to say in the face of such sorrow. He could only stand, fists clenched, and feel the helplessness of worlds.”

“We are not born to please others.”

“In the end, all things are forgiven. It is our task to forgive ourselves.”