You don't love me, Sebastian. You don't have any idea what love really is. You can't love anyone or anything until you love your own existence, first. Love can only grow out of a respect for your own life. When you love yourself, your own existence, then you love someone who can enhance your existence, share it with you, and make it more pleasurable. When you hate yourself and believe your existence is evil, then you can only hate, you can only experience the shell of love, that longing for something good, but you have nothing to base it in but hatred. You taint the very concept of love, Sebastian, with your corrupted longing for it. You want me only to justify your hatred, to be your partner in self-loathing.

Terry Goodkind (born in 1948) is an American writer and author of the epic fantasy The Sword of Truth series as well as the contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines which has ties to his fantasy series and The Omen Machine which is a direct sequel thereof. Before his success as an author Goodkind worked primarily as a painter as well as doing carpentry and woodworking.

It was adapted into a television series called Legend of the Seeker; it premiered on November 1 2008 and ran for two seasons ending in May 2010. The Sword of Truth series sold twenty-five million copies worldwide and was translated into more than twenty languages. Before his success as an author Goodkind worked primarily as a painter as well as doing carpentry and woodworking.