My favorites are probably these two, about the same event:
"No one may be compelled to fight the Despiser. He is resisted willingly, or not at all. Unbeliever, I release you. You turn from us to save life in your own world. We will not be undone by such motives. And if darkness should fall upon us, still the beauty of the Land endures. If we are a dream - and you the dreamer - then the Land is imperishable, for you will not forget.
"Be not afraid, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant. Go in Peace."
When he was done, he looked up again. Neither Bannor nor Foamfollower met his eyes at first; in their separate ways, they appeared upset by what they had heard. But finally Bannor returned Covenant's gaze and said levelly, "A costly choice, Unbeliever. Costly. Much harm might have been averted-"
Foamfollower interrupted him. "Costly! Might!" A fierce grin stretched his lips, echoed out of his deep eyes. "A child was saved! Covenant - my friend - even reduced as I am, I can hear joy in such a choice. Your bravery - Stone and Sea! It astounds me."
Yeah, "Nom." really is great!
Waddley is also quite right!
"Be true." is another.
Ah, such a huge list! Let's see...
"Can you read it? Do you know what it means? I've been here three times" - four counting the brief translation during which he had refused Mhoram's summons - "but no one's ever been able to tell me what it means."
(snip)
Swallowing heavily, Pitchwife murmered, "No words. There are none. Your scant human tongue is void-" Tears spread through the creases of his face, mapping his emotion.
But the First said for him, "All tongues, Giantfriend. All tongues lack such language. There is that in the granite glory of the world's heart which may not be uttered with words. All other expression must be dumb when the pure stone speaks. And here that speech has been made manifest. Ah, my heart!" Her voice rose as if she wanted to both sing and keen. But for her also no words were adequate. Softly, she concluded, "The Giants of the Land were taught much by their loss of Home. I am humbled before them."
Korik understood this assertion and accepted it. But he did not like it. It carried echoes of other losses and griefs - deprivations and hollow places which the Haruchai had not taken into account during their sole night of extravagance. Dourly, he posted his comrades in a wide circle around the camp. Then he stood with his arms folded on his chest, gazed warily out over the grasslands and the star-path of the moon, recited his Vow through the long watch. He could not forget any detail of the last night he had spent with his wife, whose bones were already ancient in the frozen fastness of her grave. The Vow sustained him, but it was not warm.
"Forsooth," responded Pitchwife with a light chuckle. "Had this Demondim-spawn not been gifted to the ur-Lord by a Giant, I would fear he means to ravish the maidenhood of our foremast."
At that, laughter spouted from the nearby crewmembers, then spread like a kinship of humor through the rigging as his jest was repeated to those who had not heard it.
"Ah, Bannor," he sighed. "Are you so ashamed of what you were?"
Bannor cocked a white eyebrow at the question, as if it came close to the truth. "I am not shamed," he said distinctly. "But I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service - lest the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured."
"Gently, my friend. He has turned his back on vengeance. Two thousand years and more of pure service were violated for him - yet he chooses not to avenge them. Such choices are not easily made. They are not easily borne. Retribution - ah, my friend, retribution is the sweetest of all dark sweet dreams."
Covenant gripped the Lord's gave, and said, "Tell me something, Mhoram. How did you get away - when that Raver caught you - near Foul's Creche?"
Mhoram answered with a conscious serenity, a refusal of dismay, which looked like danger in his gold-flecked eyes. "The Bloodguard with me were slain. But when samadhi Raver touched me, he knew me as I knew him. He was daunted."
"Amok," Amatin said, then hesitated. She seemed almost afraid of her next question. But she clenched her resolve, and spoke it. "Does the Seventh Ward contain knowledge of the Ritual of Desecration?"
"Lord, Desecration requires no knowledge. It comes freely to any willing hand."
With his new might, he gripped the krill and pulled it easily from the stone. Its edges were so sharp that when he held the knife in his hand he could see their keenness. His power protected him from the heat.
He turned to his companions with a smile that felt like a ray of sunshine on his face.
"Summon Lord Trevor," he said gladly. "I have - a knowledge of power that I wish to share with you."
He was alone against them.
He retreated to the center of the hollow, hunted swiftly around the rim for some gap or weakness in the surrounding horde. He found none. And though he sent his perceptions ranging as far as he could through the air, he discovered no sign of the Warward; if the warriors were still alive, still fighting, they were blocked from his senses by the solid force of the trap.
As he grasped the utterness of his plight, he turned inward, retreated into himself as if he were fleeing. There he looked the end of all his hopes and all his Landservice in the face, and found that its scarred, terrible visage no longer appalled him. He was a fighter, a man born to fight for the Land. As long as something for which he could fight remained, he was impervious to terror. And something did remain; while he lived, at least one flame of love for the Land still burned. He could fight for that.
“Grimmand Honninscrave.” Brinn spoke as if Sunder were not present. “The tale of which the ur-Lord speaks is known among us also. I am Brinn of the Haruchai. Of my people, here also are Cail, Stell, Harn, Ceer, and Hergrom. I give you our names in the name of a proud memory.” He met Honninscrave’s gaze. “Giant,” he concluded softly, “you are not alone.”
"Start a fire. A big one."
In wild magic, white puissance without sound, he shouted:
Come! This is the caamora! Come and be healed!
The wild magic struck pain into them, seared them the way a physical conflagration would have seared their bodies. Their forms went rigid, jaws stretched, eyes stared-specters screaming in soul-anguish. But the screaming was also laughter.
And the laughter prevailed.
Maybe that last sentence and Waddley's are the best of all. The ones that sum up all of TCTC:
There is also love in the world.
And the laughter prevailed.
