People see in stories what they’re looking for. — Brandon Sanderson

“And so,” he said, “in the end, what must we determine? Is it the intellect of a genius that we revere? If it were their artistry, the beauty of their mind, would we not laud it regardless of whether we’d seen their product before?

“But we don’t. Given two works of artistic majesty, otherwise weighted equally, we will give greater acclaim to the one who did it first. It doesn’t matter what you create. It matters what you create before anyone else.

“So it’s not the beauty itself we admire. It’s not the force of intellect. It’s not invention, aesthetics, or capacity itself. The greatest talent that we think a man can have?” He plucked one final string. “Seems to me that it must be nothing more than novelty.”

That man’s so incompetent he might as well be fighting for the other side.

Iriali were very particular about their chastity laws. They were very particular about a lot of things. Of course, that could be said for most peoples—the only difference were the things they were particular about.