All great fighting is the same, Eragon, even as all great warriors are the same. Past a certain point, it does not matter whether you wield a sword, a claw, a tooth or a tail. It is true, you must be capable with your weapon, but anyone with the time, and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness, and it is those qualities that the best warriors share, even if, on the surface, they appear completely different.

The trick is to find happiness in the brief gaps between disasters.

Pain is pain. It needs no description.

The monsters of the mind are far worse than those that actually exist.

A true warrior does not fight because he wishes to but because he has to. A man who yearns for war, a man who enjoys his killing, he is a brute and a monster. No matter how much glory he wins on the battlefield, that cannot erase the fact that he is no better than a rabid wolf who will turn on his friends and family as soon as his foes.

I have to admit, that's a remarkable bruise. You should be proud; it's quite a feat to get injured in the manner you did and in that...particular...place.

It is an overactive imagination that turns men into cowards, not a surfeit of fear, as many believe