“Why are you here? “Why am I here?” the man asked, lowering his flute, leaning back and relaxing. “Why are… — Brandon Sanderson
“Why are you here?
“Why am I here?” the man asked, lowering his flute, leaning back and relaxing. “Why are any of us here? That’s a rather deep question for a first meeting, young bridgeman. I generally prefer introductions before theology. Lunch too, if it can be found. Perhaps a nice nap. Actually, practically anything should come before theology. But especially introductions.”
p. 800Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
“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.”
p. 1000
People see in stories what they’re looking for.
p. 807
That man’s so incompetent he might as well be fighting for the other side.
p. 667
