I'm truly amazed at you, Garion," Polgara said. "I didn't think you had the faintest idea of how to speak a civilized language." "Thank you," he said, "I think.

Exaggerating?" Silk sounded shocked. "You don't mean to say that horses can actually lie, do you? Hettar shrugged. "Of course. They lie all the time. They're very good at it." For a moment Silk looked outraged at the thought, and then he suddenly laughed. "Somehow that restores my faith in the order of the universe," he declared. Wolf looked pained. "Silk," he said pointedly, "you're a very evil man. Did you know that?" "One does one's best," Silk replied mockingly.

Once you've decided that something's absolutely true, you've closed your mind on it, and a closed mind doesn't go anywhere. Question everything. That's what education's all about.

Start early and work hard. A writer's apprenticeship usually involves writing a million words (which are then discarded) before he's almost ready to begin. That takes a while.

I wrote a novel for my degree, and I'm very happy I didn't submit that to a publisher. I sympathize with my professors who had to read it.

The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor's farm. For all the rest of his life he had a special warm feeling for kitchens and those peculiar sounds and smells that seemed somehow to combine into a bustling seriousness that had to do with love and food and comfort and security and, above all, home. No matter how high Garion rose in life, he never forgot that all his memories began in that kitchen.

I'm hungry, Garion, and I don't think well when I'm hungry." "That might explain a lot," Beldin noted blandly. "We should have fed you more often when you were younger."