I taught in a small teacher's college for three or four years, at which point all the administrators got a pay raise and the teaching faculty didn't.

Contemporary fantasists all bow politely to Lord Tennyson and Papa Tolkien, then step around them to go back to the original texts for inspiration--and there are a lot of those texts. We have King Arthur and his gang in English; we've got Siegfried and Brunhild in German; Charlemagne and Roland in French; El Cid in Spanish; Sigurd the Volsung in Icelandic; and assorted 'myghtiest Knights on lyfe' in a half-dozen other cultures. Without shame, we pillage medieval romance for all we're worth.

Heroes aren't allowed to be nervous." "Who made up that rule?" "It's a known fact.

Its a perfectly good face, Sparhawk." "It covers the front of my head. What else can you expect from a face?

Nothing that's really worthwhile should be easy, Belgarion. If it's easy, we don't value it.

I'm a storyteller, not a prophet. I'm just interested in a good story.

It's the nature of man to ask questions. --Belgarath