“Peter loves to make promises. He has the best intentions of keeping them. It makes it worse, somehow, that he doesn’t know how to. He thinks he’s a nice boy, that’s the worst part.”

“He’ll have to prove it to you. Every day, he’ll have to prove he’s worthy ofyou. And if he doesn’t, that’s it. But I think he will.”

“Will nodded toward Hadrian. “Look at the swords he’s carrying. A man wearing one—maybe he knows how to use it, maybe not. A man carries two—he probably don’t know nothing about swords, but he wants you to think he does. But a man carrying three swords—that’s a lot of weight. No one’s gonna haul that much steel around unless he makes a living using them.”

“The way he was talking to me earlier… makes me think he’s starting to feel like God’s the cosmic sadist again and he’s the marionette.”“In other words, God’s just torturing him for the kick?”Thomas sighed and set his mostly untouched plate down. “Something like that.”“That’s not a healthy outlook.”“He doesn’t feel loved right now, so it’s the natural one.”

“Keep in mind, Eragon, that no one thinks himself a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong. A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time.”

“If each person does the best with what he has, that’s winning. He’s fulfilling his own potential.”