Future

We can only change the future,

not the past or present.

-- Artemis Fowl

Scars

Scars remind us where we've been.

They don't have to dictate where we're going.

-- Dave Rossi

Questions

The big questions are big for a reason...

they're hard.

But absolutely everybody struggles with them.

-- Emma Pillsbury

Mess

Any kid can make a mess.

It takes a real man to clean it up.

-- Janitor from Max Keeble

Confidence

Confidence is ignorance.

If you're feeling cocky, 

it's because there's something you don't know.

-- Foaly

Life

Life is short enough without chasing certain doom.

-- Raxtus

Hearing and Listening

There is a difference between hearing and listening.

You can't always help what you hear.

But you can control what holds your interest,

what you choose to dwell on.

-- Stan Sorenson

Wisdom

Seth: I hate how my past actions keep messing up my future options.

Grandpa Sorenson: Then you've started down the road to wisdom.

Good and Evil

In order to be good, 

you must recognize the difference between right and wrong

and strive to choose the right.

To be truly evil you must do the contrary.

Being good or evil is a choice.

-- Stan Sorenson

Jump

When jumping is the sole option,

you jump and try to make it work.

-- Patton Burgess

Why

Questions that start with why are the toughest to answer.

You end up guessing more than knowing.

-- Dale Burgess

Despair

To fall from greatness, 

from the dizziest heights to the deepest depths,

knowing one might have prevented it,

certain one will never reclaim what one has lost cripples the will.

Life holds no more meaning than one chooses to impose.

And I've quit pretending long ago.

-- Graulas

Identity

We, humans, are conflicted beings.

Our beliefs don't always harmonize with our instincts, 

and our behavior doesn't always reflect our beliefs.

We constantly struggle with right and wrong.

We wage war between the person we are and the person we hope to become.

We have a lot of practice wrestling with ourselves.

As a result, compared with magical creatures, we, humans, are much more able to suppress our natural inclinations in order to deliberately choose our identities.

-- Stan Sorenson 

Courage and Stupidity

He was contemplating the difference between courage and stupidity, a distinction Grandpa Sorenson had repeatedly tried to emphasize.

He considered himself armed with useful definitions.

Stupidity was when you took risks for no good reason.

Courage was when you took a calculated risk in order to aacomplish something important.

Good and Evil

Each human being has significant potential for light and darkness.

Over a lifetime, we get a lot of practice leaning toward one or the other.

Having made different choices, a renowned hero could have been a wretched villain.

-- Stan Sorenson

Unbelief

Total unbelief is a powerful inhibitor.

It can blind an individual to obvious truths,

no matter what others do or say.

-- Stan Sorenson

True Love

You don't find love that easy.

If you wanna know what true love is like 

then you have to find it yourself.

True love...

everyone has it.

-- Nakahara Mine

Infinity

Patience mimics the power of infinity.

And nobody can win a staring contest with infinity.

No matter how long you last,

infinity is just getting started.

-- The Sphinx

Truth and Lies

Sometimes the most preposterous lies are the most believable.

-- Errol Fisk

Ignorance

Sitting still would be a mistake.

Ignorance is no longer a protection.

-- Brandon Mull

Danger

Running toward danger is foolhardy...

but so is closing your eyes to it.

Many perils become less dangerous 

once you understand potential hazards.

-- Ruth Sorenson

Magic

There is a fundamental principle of magic that applies to many other things as well:

everything with a beginning has an ending.

Any magic that can be done, can be undone.

Anything you make, can be unmade.

-- The Sphinx

Religion

No mythology or religion that I know of holds all the answers.

Most religions are based on truths, but they are also polluted by the philosophies and imaginations of men.

-- Lena

Mortality

The curse of mortality:

You spend the first portion of your life 

learning, 

growing stronger, 

more capable.

And then, through no fault of your own, 

your body begins to fail.

You regress.

Strong limbs become feeble,

keen senses grow dull,

hardy constitutions deteriorate.

Beauty withers.

Organs quit.

You remember yourself in your prime,

and wonder where that person went.

As your wisdom and experience are peaking,

your traitorous body becomes a prison.

-- Lena 

Rules and Punishments

Unless the punishments are enforced,

rules lose all their power.

-- Stan Sorenson

Taking Action

A man with a brave tongue 

should support his words with courageous actions.

-- Muriel Taggart

Rules

What do you suppose makes people so eager to break rules?

Is it simply the pleasure of disobedience?

The thrill of rebellion?

-- Stan Sorenson

Good and Evil

None of these creatures are good.

Not the way we think of good.

None are safe. 

Much of morality is peculiar to mortality.

The best creatures here are merely not evil.

-- Stan Sorenson