“If I should die,” Dalinar said, “then I would do so having lived my life right. It is not the destination that matters, but how one arrives there.”“The Codes?”“No. The Way of Kings.”“That storming book.”

“Then tell me this: How do I outthink an enemy I know is smarter than I am?' ...I face some of the most crafty people who have ever lived. My current foe understands the minds of others in a way that I cannot hope to match. So how do I defeat her? She will vanish the moment I threaten her, running to one of a dozen other refuges that she is sure to have set up. ...I have to peer into her eyes, see into her soul, and know that it's her that I face and not some decoy. I have to do that without frightening her into running. How?'***The question remains,' he said, voice soft but tense. 'How would you fight her, Nynaeve?'I don't care to play your games, Rand al'Thor,' Nynaeve replied with a huff. 'You've obviously already decided what you intend to do. Why ask me?'Because what I'm about to do should frighten me,' he said. 'It doesn't.”

“Wit was insulting each person as they stepped onto the island. “Brightness Marakal! What adisaster that hairstyle is; how brave of you to show it to the world. Brightlord Marakal, I wish you’dwarned us you were going to attend; I’d have forgone supper. I do so hate being sick after a full meal.Brightlord Cadilar! How good it is to see you. Your face reminds me of someone dear to me.”“Really?” wizened Cadilar said, hesitating.“Yes,” Wit said, waving him on, “my horse. Ah, Brightlord Neteb, you smell unique today—did youattack a wet whitespine, or did one just sneeze on you? Lady Alami! No, please, don’t speak—it’s mucheasier to maintain my illusions regarding your intelligence that way. And Brightlord Dalinar.” Wit noddedto Dalinar as he passed. “Ah, my dear Brightlord Taselin. Still engaged in your experiment to prove amaximum threshold of human idiocy? Good for you! Very empirical of you.”

“Dalinar took a deep breath, then forced himself to open his arms and pull back. “If you had hoped tosoothe my worries for the day, then this didn’t help.”She folded her arms. He could still feel where her safehand had touched him on the back. A tendertouch, reserved for a family member. “I’m not here to soothe you, Dalinar. Quite the opposite.”“Please. I do need time to think.”“I won’t let you put me away. I won’t ignore that this happened. I won’t—”“Navani,” he gently cut her off, “I will not abandon you. I promise.”She eyed him, then a wry smile crept onto her face. “Very well. But you began something today.”“I began it?” he asked, amused, elated, confused, worried, and ashamed at the same time.“The kiss was yours, Dalinar,” she said idly, pulling open the door and entering his antechamber.“You seduced me to it.”“What? Seduced?” She glanced back at him. “Dalinar, I’ve never been more open and honest in mylife.”“I know,” Dalinar said, smiling. “That was the seductive part.” He closed the door softly, then let outa sigh. Blood of my fathers, he thought, why can’t these things ever be simple?And yet, in direct contrast with his thoughts, he felt as if the entire world had somehow becomemore right for having gone wrong.”

“Somebody tell me that I should just go speak to the kings again.""uh," Sing said, "didn't I just do that?""I need to her it again, Sing," Grandpa Smedry said. "I'm old and stubborn!”

“Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”

“You are inexperienced. So was I, once. So is every man. The measure of a person is not how much they have lived. . . It's in how they make us of what life has shown them.”