Terry Brooks was born in Sterling, Illinois in 1944. During his childhood, Terry realized that while he enjoyed role-playing, he found that his mind was able to carry a vast playground of ideas. He started writing when he was in the fourth grade and became hooked. He continued with his writing interest all through law school. During which time he wrote the draft for what became the blockbuster hit "The Sword of Shannara." Terry submitted the draft to Ballantine books courtesy of Don Wollheim in 1974. The president of Ballantine, Ron Busch, gave it to Judy-Lynn Del Rey for her review. She gave it to her husband Lester Del Rey who used it to help jump-start the fantasy genre in the post Lord of the Rings era. In 1977, and after much revision, "The Sword of Shannara" was published. The book became a success and launched a whole series that furthers the story of the Ohmsford family struggle with evil. Not just limiting himself to the Shannara series, Terry wrote two more to date: "The Word and Void" , Terry lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife Judine. He gives tours and book signings with readings from his latest writing project. He is currently working on a six-book project that furthers the Shannara storyline as well as combine it with his "Word and Void" series.
Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, vol. 135, pages 45-49. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
(March 2005) Seattle, Washington
Was the "Milky Bar Kid" in the series of TV commercials from 1961-1967
We live out our lives as we are meant to live them-with some choice, with some chance, but mostly as a result of the persons we are.
Faith, Princess," the Prism Cat repeated. "It is a highly underrated weapon against the dark things in this world.
What we have in life that we can count on is who we are and where we come from, she thought absently. For better or worse, that is what we have to sustain us in our endevors, to buttress us in our darker moments, and to remind us of our identity. Without those things, we are adrift.
The Elven people believe that preservation of the land and all that lives and grows upon it, plant and animal alike, is a moral responsibility. They have always held this belief foremost in their conduct as creatures of the earth. In the old world, they devoted the whole of their lives to caring for the woodlands and forests in which they lived, cultivating its various forms of vegetation, sheltering the animals that it harbored. Of course, they had little else to concern them in those days, for they were an isolated and reclusive people. All that has changed now, but they still maintain a belief in their moral responsibility for their world. Every Elf is expected to spend a portion of his life giving back to the land something of what he has taken out of it. By that I mean every Elf is expected to devote a part of his life to working with the land–to repairing damage it may have suffered through misuse or neglect, to caring for its animals and other wildlife, to caring for its trees and smaller plants where the need to do so is found.
Who would you be but who you are?,There was that sense of abandoning the familiar for the unknown that characterizes all journeys made for the first time.
Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing. Visions born of hope give birth to our success. What is possible lives within us, and it only remains for us to discover it.
There are many forms of magic in this world, High Lord. Some come in large packages, some in small. Some work with fire and strength of body and heard . . . and some work with revelation.
Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves.
Cats can do whatever they want, whenever they want, without regard to what anyone says or does. Rather like Princesses.
Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost, High Lord. Believe it saved, and it may be. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing. Visions born of hope give birth to our success.
But your responsibilities are sometimes given you without choice, without consent.
And yet it had come to this: a cult that followed a dogmatic hard line of exclusion and repression, believed its teachings alone were the way that others must follow, and claimed special knowledge of something that had happened more than five centuries ago. It did nothing to soften its rigid stance, nothing to heal wounds that it had helped to create by deliberately shunning people of other Races, and nothing to explore the possibility of other beliefs. It held its ground even in the face of hard evidence that perhaps it had misjudged and refused to consider that it was courting a danger that might destroy everyone. p96,Let me tell you something you haven’t learned yet, something you learn only by living awhile. As you get older, you find that life begins to wear you down. Doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, it happens. Experience, time, events—they all conspire against you to steal away your energy, to erode your confidence, to make you question things you wouldn’t have given a second thought to when you were young. It happens gradually, a chipping away that you don’t even notice at first, and then one day it’s there. You wake up and you just don’t have the fire anymore. ” He smiled. . .
When you can do that, little Wren, when you can accept the wearing down and the eroding, then you can do anything. How did I manage to keep going out nights? I just told myself I didn’t matter all that much—that those in here mattered more. You know something? It’s not so hard really. You just have to get past the fear.
A cat never discusses his business with humans, not even Princesses. A cat never explains and never apologizes. A cat never alibis. You must accept a cat as it is and for what it is and not expect more than the pleasure of its company.
Might have, could have, may have, should have—the haves and have nots reduced to pointless possibilities.
Fantasy writing must be grounded in both truth and life experience if it is to work. It can be as inventive and creative as the writer can make it, a whirlwind of images and plot twists, but it cannot be built on a foundation of air. The world must be identifiable with our own, must offer us a frame of reference we can recognize. ”“Fantasy stories work because the writer has interwoven bits and pieces of reality with imagination to form a personal vision.
The future is an ever-shifting maze of possibilities until it becomes the present. The future I have shown you tonight is not yet fixed. But it is more likely to become so with the passing of every day because nothing is being done to turn it aside. If you would change it, do as I have told you.
Hurt leads to bitterness, bitterness to anger, travel too far that road and the way is lost. .
