The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long pass, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

     "They called them savages. The fools said they could be swept aside like rubbish. How many battles lost, how many cities burnt, before they faced the truth? Before the nations stood together against them. The field at Marath carpeted with the dead, and no sound but the cries of ravens and the buzzing of flies. The topless towers of Cairhien burning in the night like torches. All the way to the shining walls they burned and slew before they were turned back."

Tam al'Thor
6, The Westwood, 84

     "No need for shame, sheepherder. They scare me too. I've seen men who have been soldiers all their lives freeze like a bird facing a snake when they confronted a Halfman. In the north, in the Borderlands along the Great Blight, there is a saying. The look of the Eyeless is fear."

al'Lan Mandragoran
8, A Place of Safety, 109

     "When the Dark One's armies swooped down upon the lands of Manetheren, the men of the Mountain Home stood before it, with their backs to the Tarendrelle. The host that faced the men of Manetheren was enough to daunt the bravest heart. Ravens blackened the sky; Trollocs blackened the land... At night their cookfires outnumbered the stars and dawn revealed the banner of Ba'alzamon at their heads... Hold for three days against odds that should overwhelm them in the first hour. Yet somehow, through bloody assault and desperate defence, they held through an hour, and the second hour, and the third. For three days they fought, and though the land became a butcher's yard, no crossing of the Tarendrelle did they yield. By the third night no help had come, and they fought on alone. For six. For nine."

Moiraine
9, Tellings of the Wheel, 132

     "The One Power comes from the True Source, the driving force of creation, the force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time. Saidin, the male half of the true source, and saidar, the female half, work against each other, and at the same time together to provide that force. Saidin is fouled by the touch of the Dark One, like water with a thin slick of rancid oil floating on top. The water is till pure, but it cannot be touched without touching the foulness. Only saidar is still safe to be used...
     "The True Source cannot be used up, any more than the river can be used up by the wheel of the mill. The Source is the river; the Aes Sedai, the waterwheel."

Moiraine
12, Across the Tavern, 169

     "The Dark One is after you three, one or all, and if I let you go running off wherever you want to go, he will take you. Whatever the Dark One wants, I oppose, so hear this and know it true. Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself."

Moiraine
13, Choices, 180

     "You live like a beetle under a rock and you think your slime is the universe. The death of time will bring me power as such you could not dream of, worm.
     "I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer's shoulder when he did the deed that named him... Have you ever heard a man scream his soul away, worm?... A thousand years later I sent the Trollocs ravening south, and for three centuries they savaged the world. Those blind fools in Tar Valon said I was beaten in the end, but the Second Convenant, the Convenant of the Ten Nations, was shattered beyond remaking, and who was left to oppose me then? I whispered in Artur Hawkwing's ear and the length and breadth of the land Aes Sedai died. I whispered again, and the High King sent his armies across the Aryth Ocean, across the World Sea, and sealed two dooms. The doom of his dream of one land and one people, and a doom yet to come... I spoke, and the High King's last words were to cry that Tar Valon must be destroyed."

Ba'alzamon
14, The Stag and Lion, 204

     "... prancing, silver hooves and proud, arched necks. Silken manes fluttered with tossed heads. A thousand streaming banners whip rainbows against an endless sky. A hundred brazen-throated trumpets shiver the air, and drums rattle like thunder. Wave on wave, cheers roll from watchers in their thousands, roll across the rooftops and towers of Ilian, crash and break unheard around the thousand ears of riders whose eyes and hearts shine with their sacred quest. The Great Hunt of the Horn rides forth, rides to seek the Horn of Valere that will summon the heroes of the Ages back from the grave to the battle for the light..."

Thom Merrilin
15, Strangers and Friends, 210

     "Master Andra has seven ruined towers around his head, and a babe in a cradle holding a sword... The strongest images around the gleeman are a man - not him - juggling fire, and the White Tower... The strongest things I see about the big, curly-haired fellow [Perrin] are a wolf, and a broken crown, and trees flowering all around him. And the other one [Mat] - a red eagle, an eye on a balance scale, a dagger with a ruby, a horn, and a laughing face.
      "[Rand] A sword that isn't a sword, a golden crown of laurel leaves, a beggar's staff, you pouring water on sand, a bloody hand and a white-hot iron, three women standing over a funeral bier with you on, a black rock wet with blood - ... Most of all, I see lightning around you, some striking at you, some coming out of you."

Min
15, Strangers and Friends, 215

     "My da says, only a fool puts his hand in a hornet nest until he absolutely has to."

Matrim Cauthon
15, Strangers and Friends, 229

     Sometimes you have to grab the wolf by the ears.
     When you have a wolf by the ears, it's as hard to let go, as to hold on.

16, The Wisdom, 232

     Whether the wolf beats the bear, or the bear beats the wolf, the rabbit always loses.

Two Rivers saying
16, The Wisdom, 236

     "The Light save me from men who think with the hair on their chests. Though I don't know as there are any other kind."

Nynaeve al'Meara
16, The Wisdom, 239

al'Lan Mandrogoran
17, Watchers and Hunters, 257

Moiraine
21, Listen to the Wind, 318

     "Her name isn't Dapple. It's something that means the way shadows play on a forest pool at a midwinter dawn, with the breeze rippling the surface, and the tang of ice when the water touches the tongue, and a hint of snow before nightfall in the air. But that isn't quite it, either."

Elyas Machera
23, Wolfbrother, 341

     "I suppose I should thank you for teaching me how true the old saying is. Teach him how you will, a pig will never play the flute."

Thom Merrilin
26, Whitebridge, 378

Elyas Machera
29, Eyes Without Pity, 429

     "Arthur Paendrag Tanreall, Arthur Hawkwing, the High King, united all the lands from the Great Blight to the Sea of Storms, from the Aryth Ocean to the Aiel Waste, and even some beyond the Waste. He even sent armies the other side of the Aryth Ocean. The stories say he ruled the whole world, but what he really did rule was enough for any man outside of a story. And he brought peace and justice to the land...
     "Arthur Hawkwing brought peace and justice but he did it with fire and sword. A child could ride alone with a bag of gold from the Aryth Ocean to the Spine of the World and never have a moment's fear, but the High King's justice was as hard as that rock there for anyone who challenged his power, even if it was just by being who they were, or by people thinking they were a challenge. The common folk had peace and justice, and full bellies, but he laid a twenty year siege to Tar Varlon, and put a price of a thousand gold crowns on the head of every Aes Sedai."

Elyas Machera
29, Eyes Without Pity, 436

     "You'll use it [Perrin's axe], boy, and as long as you hate using it, you would use it more wisely than most men would. Wait. If ever you don't hate it any longer, then will be the time to throw it as far as you can and run the other way."

Elyas Machera
30, Children of Shadow, 440

     Out of the night Hopper came, and Perrin was one with the wolf. Hopper, the cub who had watched the eagles soar, and so badly wanted to fly through the skies as the eagles did. The cub who hopped and jumped and leaped until he could leap higher than any other wolf, and who never lost the cub's yearning to soar through the sky. Out of the night Hopper came and left the ground in a leap, soaring like the eagles.

30, Children of Shadow, 445

     "Who would I sell it [dagger] to, Rand? A farmer would have to pay in chickens; we couldn't buy a carriage with chickens."

Matrim Cauthon
31, Play for your Supper, 459

     "The Wheel of Time weaves the Patterns of the Ages, and the threads it uses are lives. It is not fixed, the Pattern, not always. If a man tries to change the direction of his life and the Pattern has room for it, the Wheel just weaves on and takes it in. There is always room for small changes, but sometimes the Pattern simply won't accept a big change, no matter how hard you try...
     "... But sometimes the change chooses you, and sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on. The first bending to make the Web is ta'veren, and there is nothing you can do to change it, not until the Pattern itself changes. The Web - ta'maral'ailen, it's called - can last for weeks, or for years. It can take in a town, or even the whole Pattern. Arthur Hawkwing was ta'veren. So was Lews Therin Kinslayer, for that matter, I suppose."

Loial
36, Web of the Pattern, 554

Morgase
40, The Web Tightens, 615

     "The Trolloc Wars left nothing but memories, Loial, son of Arent, and people to build on them. They could not duplicate the Builders' work any more than I could. Those intricate curves and patterns your people create and beyond human eyes and hands to make. Perhaps we wish to avoid a poor imitation that would only have been an ever-present reminder to us of what we had lost. There is a different beauty in simplicity, in a single line placed just so, a single flower among the rocks. The harshness of the stone make the flower more precious. We try not ot dwell too much on what is gone. The strongest heart will break under the strain."

Agelmar
46, Fal Dara, 702

     "The rose petal floats on water. The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death."

al'Lan Mandragoran
46, Fal Dara, 702

     "Into this infant hands they placed the sword of Malkieri kings, the sword he wears today. A weapon made by Aes Sedai during the War of Power, the War of the Shadow that brought down the Age of Legends. They anointed his head with oil, naming him Dai Shan, a Diademed Battle Lord, and consecrated him as the next King of the Malkieri, and in his name they swore the ancient oath of Malkieri kings and queens. To stand against the shadow so long as iron is hard and stone abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be defended.
     "... From the cradle they taught him all they knew. He learned weapons as other children learn toys, and the Blight as other children their mother's garden. The oath sword over his cradle is graven in his mind. There is nothing left to defend, but he can avenge. He denies his titles, yet in the Boderlands he is called the Uncrowned, and if he ever raised the Golden Crane of Malkier, an army would come to follow. But he will not lead men to their deaths. In the Blight he courts death as a suitor courts a maiden, but he will not lead others to it."

Agelar
47, More Tales of the Wheel, 710

     "What a strange thing to say," Egwene said. "Why do they use it like that? Peace [favor your sword]."
      "When you have never known a thing except to dream," Lan replied, feeling Mandarb forward, "it becomes more than a talisman."

Egwene and Lan
48, The Blight, 723

     "I should have known you would be a king."
     "I am not a king, Nynaeve. Just a man. A man without as much to his name as even the meanest farmer's croft."
     "Some women don't ask for land, or gold. Just the man."
     "And the man who would ask her to accept so little would not be worthy of her. You are a remarkable woman, as beautiful as the sunrise, as fierce as a warrior. You are a lioness, Wisdom."
     "A Wisdom seldom weds. But if I go to Tar Valon, it may be that I will be something other than a Wisdom."
     "Aes Sedai marry as seldom as Wisdoms. Few men can live with so much power in a wife, dimming them by her radiance whether she wishes or not."
     "Some men are strong enough. I know one such."
     "All I have is a sword, and a war I cannot win, but can never stop fighting."
     "I've told you I care nothing for that. Light, you've made me say more than is proper already. Will you shame me to the point of asking you?"
     "I will never shame you. I will hate the man you choose because he is not me, and love him if he makes you smile. No woman deserves the sure knowledge of widow's black as her brideprice, you least of all."

Nynaeve and Lan
48, The Blight, 731