Brandon Sanderson

Order was the very substance of rule. If things were organized, control could be asserted.

All life worked in concert, he’d been taught in his youth. Everything but men, who refused their place. Who destroyed instead of added.

It becomes the responsibility of every man, upon realizing he lacks the truth to seek it out.

Heroism is a myth you tell idealistic young people—specifically when you want them to go bleed for you.

The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it?

It’s the next one.

Being a human was about making sense of chaos, finding meaning among the random elements of the world.

“I…don’t feel like I’ve won.…”

“Welcome to war, Evi,” Dalinar said, heading toward the door. “There are no unequivocal wins. Just victories that leave fewer of your friends dead than others.”

She felt like drawing this scene, but knew it was the type of moment she couldn’t capture on a page. It wasn’t about content or composition, but the pleasure of living.

The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.

“You make it sound like having the power to change the world is a bad thing.”

“Bad? No. Abhorrent, depressing, ghastly. Having power is a terrible burden, the worst thing imaginable, except for every other alternative.”

Most cities lived on the very edge of civilization. Everyone talked about towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere as if they were uncivilized, but she’d found people in those places pleasant, even-tempered, and comfortable with their quieter way of life.

Not in cities. Cities balanced on the edge of sustainability, always one step from starvation. When you pressed so may people together, their cultures, ideas, and stenches rubbed off on one another. The results wasn’t civilization. It was contained chaos, pressurized, bottled up so it couldn’t escape.

“You can’t civilize war,” Dalinar said. “There’s no painting it up and making it pretty.”

“Morality is an axis that doesn’t interest us,” Mraize said calmly. “Only loyalty and power are relevant, for morality is as ephemeral as the changing weather. It depends upon the angle from which you view it.”