Brandon Sanderson

“The only reason to be subservient to those with power is so that you can learn to someday take what they have. Reen's words.”

“Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp. Reading the right one at the right time can make all the difference.”

“In the end, I worry that my arrogance shall destroy us all.”

“Authority doesn't come from a rank.," Kaladin said, fingering the spheres in his pocket."Where does it come from?""From the men who give it to you. That's the only way to get it.”

“I once saw a spindly man carrying a stone larger than his head upon his back. He stumbled beneath the weight, shirtless under the sun, wearing only a loincloth. He tottered down a busy thoroughfare. People made way for him. Not because they sympathized with him, but because they feared the momentum of his steps. You dare not impede one such as this. The monarch is like this man, stumbling along, the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. Many give way before him, but so few are willing to step in and help carry the stone. They do not wish to attach themselves to the work, lest they condemn themselves to a life full of extra burdens. I left my carriage that day and took up the stone, lifting it for the man. I believe my guards were embarrassed. One can ignore a poor shirtless wretch doing such labor, but none ignore a king sharing the load. Perhaps we should switch places more often. If a king is seen to assume the burden of the poorest of men, perhaps there will be those who will help him with his own load, so invisible, yet so daunting.”

“You hate change. I hate it too. But things can't stay the same- and that's well, for when nothing changes in your life, it's as good as being dead”

“I was thinking that work is like fertilizer in that I'm glad it exists; I just don't ever want to get stuck in it.”

“Cowardice can imitate heroism if given no where to flee”

“You are a god. To me, at least. It doesn't matter how easily you can be killed, how much Breath you have, or how you look. It has to do with who you are and what you mean.”

“You're wonderful. So full of life and excitement. The priests and servants of the palace, they wear colors, but there's no color inside of them. They just go about their duties, eyes down, solemn. You've got color on the inside, so much of it that it bursts out and colors everything around you.”

“You aren't insane, then." "Heavens no," I said. I eyed her. "You don't accept that."You see people that aren't there Mr. Leeds. It's a difficult fact to get around."And, yet, I live a good life," I said. "Tell me. Why would you consider me insane, but the man who can't hold a job, who cheats on his wife, who can't keep his temper in check, you call him sane?”

“In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method.”

“We create things to watch them grow, Ruin, she said. To take pleasure in seeing that which we love become more than it was before.”

“That's kind of what trust is, isn't it? A willful self-delusion.”

“People with passion are people who will destroy—for a man's passion is not true until he proves how much he's willing to sacrifice for it. Will he kill? Will he go to war? Will he break and discard that which he has, all in the name of what he needs?”

“What was that?" Galladon demanded."I think I just destroyed the biology section" Raoden replied with wonder.”

“Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees.”

“I am a fish.”

“I believe in rendering to science the things that belong to science. I have no problem with evolution or discussions of the age of the Earth, for I don't believe that we come anywhere near comprehending the mind of God or the workings of the universe. Science can explain a lot, but it cannot give us faith, and I think we need both.”

“Adults are not idiotsoften in books such as this one, the opposite impression is given. Adults in those stories will either (a) get captured, (b) disappear conspicuously when there is trouble, or (c) refuse to help. ( im not sure what authors have against adults, but everyone seems to hate them to an extent usually reserved for dogs and mothers. Why else make them out to make such idiots? "Ah look, the dark lord of evil has come to attack the castle! Annnd. ther's my lunch break. Have fun saving the word on your own kids") In the real world adults tend to get involved in everything whether you want them to or not. They won't disappear when the dark lord appears, though they may try to sue them. This discrepancy is yet another proof that most books are fantasies while this book is utterly true and invaluable. you see in this book, I will make it completely clear that adults are not idiots. they are however hairyAdults are like hairy kids who like to tell other what to do. Dispite what other books may claim they do have their uses, they can reach things on high shelves for instance... Regardless, i often wish that the two groups-adults and kids- could find a way to get along better. Some sort of treaty or something. The biggest problem is the adults have one of the most effective recruitment stratagies in the world. Give them enough time and they'll turn any kid into one of them.”

“What responsibility are you avoiding...He wasn't avoiding responsibility...Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was his fault, the belief that he couldn't change anything. If a man was cursed, or if he believed he didn't have to care, then he didn't need to hurt when he failed. Those failures couldn't have been prevented. Someone or something else had ordained them.”

“That's the point, isn't it? We have to live on, no matter how hard it gets. We'll win in the end.”

“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”

“Attacking a provincial lord in his manor house, surrounded by guards...Honestly, Kell, I'd nearly forgotten how foolhardy you can be."Foolhardy?" Kelsier asked with a laugh. "that wasn't foolhardy - that was just a small diversion. You should see some of the things I'm planning to do!Dockson stood for a moment then he laughed too. "By the Lord Ruler, it's good to have you back, kell! I'm afraid I've grown rather boring during the last few years""We'll fix that" Kelsier promised.”

“This world, it is a tempest sometimes. But remember, the sun always rises again.”

“Kelsier smiled. 'It means that you, Vin, are a very special person. You have a power that most high noblemen envy. It is a power that, had you been born an aristocrat, would have made you one of the most deadly and influential people in all of the final empire.'Kelsier leaned forward again. 'But, you weren't born an aristocrat. You're not noble, Vin. You don't have to play by their rules--and that makes you even more powerful.”

“A man is what he has passion about,” Breeze said. “I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”

“It was amazing how many books one could fit into a room, assuming one didn't want to move around very much.”

“You've managed-- in our short three years together-- to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiance. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It's a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn't you say?”

“Are there any religions on your list that include the slaughter of noblemen as a holy duty?”

“I consider myself to be a man of principle. But, what man does not? Even the cutthroat, I have noticed, considers his actions "moral" after a fashion.Perhaps another person, reading of my life, would name me a religious tyrant. He could call me arrogant. What is to make that man's opinion any less valid than my own?I guess it all comes down to one fact: In the end, I'm the one with the armies.”

“Faith isn't about logic, son," Haddek said. "Perhaps that's your problem. You cannot 'disprove' the things you study, any more than we can prove to you that the Hero will save us. We simply must believe it, and accept the things Preservation has taught us.”

“I learned it many, many years ago from a man who didn't know who he was, Your Majesty. It was a distant place where two lands meet and gods have died. But that is unimportant.”

“Can a woman not walk with her possessions down the street of a city?”

“Vin: I don't know -- and it's all your fault, you know. I used to understand everything. Now it's all confused.Kelsier: Yes, we've messed you up right properly.”

“How do you do that?” Mennis asked, frowning.“What?”“Smile so much.”“Oh, I’m just a happy person.”

“For me, if I have writer’s block it means I know that what I am writing is not working quite right and I need to go back and fix what is not right. And once I do that I can write onward. Sometimes writer’s block is just I’m in a funk that day and my writing just isn’t working. In that case I write anyway and then throw it away. You can always write. Writer's block is 'I can't write because what I'm writing is crap.”

“One can have a wit, but not a witless”

“[Omin] ...All things must progress, and progression is not always a steady incline. Sometimes we must fall, sometimes we will rise - some must be hurt while others have fortune, for that is the only way we can learn to rely on one another. As one is blessed, it is his privilege to help those whose lives are not as easy. Unity comes from strife, child."Page 193”

“...Generally people don't recomend this type of book at all. It is far too interesting. Perhaps you have had other books recomended to you. Perhaps, even, you have been given books by friends, parents, teachers, then told that these books are the type you have to read. Those books are invariably described as "important"- which in my experience, pretty much means that they're boring. (words like meaningful and thoughtful are other good clues.)”

“To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.”

“A thing of nature.For every Push, there is a Pull. A consequence.”

“She remembered Kelsier, standing boldly before a small group of thieves, proclaiming that they wouldoverthrow the Lord Ruler and free the empire. We're thieves, he'd said. And we're extraordinarilygood ones. We can rob the unrobbable and fool the unfoolable. We know how to take anincredibly large task and break it down to manageable pieces, then deal with each of those pieces.That day, when he'd written up the team's goals and plans on a small board, Vin had been amazed byhow possible he had made an impossible task seem. That day, a little bit of her had begun to believe thatKelsier could overthrow the Final Empire.”

“The figure stood in the flames, dark, hard to make out. "I've given you the blessing of pewter, Spook," the voice said. "Use it to escape this place. You can break through the boards on the far side of that hallway, escape out onto the roof of the building nearby. The soldiers won't be watching for you—they're too busy controlling the fire so it doesn't spread."Spook nodded. The heat didn't bother him anymore. "Thank you."The figure stepped forward, becoming more than just a silhouette. Flames played against the man's firm face, and Spook's suspicions were confirmed. There was a reason he'd trusted that voice, a reason why he'd done what it had said.He'd do whatever this man commanded."I didn't give you pewter just so you could live, Spook," Kelsier said, pointing. "I gave it to you so you could get revenge. Now, go!”

“The ways of Wayne are mysterious and incomprehensible.”

“Hemalurgy, it is called, because of the connection to blood. It is not a coincidence, I believe, thatdeath is always involved in the transfer of powers via Hemalurgy. Marsh once described it as a"messy" process. Not the adjective I would have chosen. It's not disturbing enough.”

“You people are all insane. How I ended up with you, I'll never know."Breeze laughed. "Now, that's a lie, Cett. You know exactly how you ended up joining with us. Wethreatened to kill you if you didn't!”

“Elend shook his head. "We can survive this. But, the only way that will happen is if our people don't give up. They need leaders who laugh, leaders who feel that this fight can be won. So, this is what I ask of you. I don't care if you're an optimist or a pessimist—I don't care if secretly, you think we'll all be dead before the month ends. On the outside, I want to see you smiling. Do it in defiance, if you have to. If the end does come, I want this group to meet that end smiling. As the Survivor taught us.”

“Breeze chuckled. "He was completely insane, you know. The worse things got, the more he'd joke. Iremember how chipper he was the very day after one of our worst defeats, when we lost most of ourskaa army to that fool Yeden. Kell walked in, a spring in his step, making one of his inane jokes.""Sounds insensitive," Allrianne said.Ham shook his head. "No. He was just determined. He always said that laughter was something theLord Ruler couldn't take from him. He planned and executed the overthrow of a thousand-yearempire—and he did it as a kind of . . . penance for letting his wife die thinking that he hated her. But, hedid it all with a smirk on his lips. Like every joke was his way of slapping fate in the face.""We need what he had," Elend said.”

“I want you to tell meabout the Survivor," he finally said."He was lord of the mists," Demoux said immediately."Not the rhetoric," Elend said. "Someone tell me about the man, Kelsier. I never met him, you know. Isaw him once, right before he died, but I never knew him.""What's the point?" Cett asked. "We've all heard the stories. He's practically a god, if you listen to theskaa.""Just do as I ask," Elend said.The tent was still for a few moments. Finally, Ham spoke. "Kell was . . . grand. He wasn't just a man,he was bigger than that. Everything he did was large—his dreams, the way he spoke, the way he thought.. . .""And it wasn't false," Breeze added. "I can tell when a man is being a fake. That's why I started myfirst job with Kelsier, actually. Amidst all the pretenders and posturers, he was genuine. Everyone wantedto be the best. Kelsier really was.""He was a man," Vin said quietly. "Just a man. Yet, you always knew he'd succeed. He made you bewhat he wanted you to be.""So he could use you," Breeze said."But you were better when he was done with you," Ham added”