It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. ("The Troll")

It's not evil, Rand. I know something evil when I smell it. This isn't evil, it's just incredibly stupid.

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.

The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.

Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, __ook at my beautiful home! Isn__ it fine?_ And not, __ook at the home so-and-so has built._ Thus we shouldn__ cry, __ook what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!_ But rather, __ook at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave?

The world won't be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.