Brandon Sanderson

Quotes

1. It was a frantic, insane brawl for power.

   p. 550

2. 

   An army was the sort of thing everyone wanted to have, so long as it was off doing important things elsewhere.

   p. 722

3. 

   I’d hoped…I’d hoped you could tell me, give me an absolute right. For once, I’d like my moral code not to come with a list of exceptions at the end.

   p. 318

4. 

   “They all stretched farther and farther until they collapsed. In all the history of mankind, has any conqueror decided they had enough? Has any man just said, ‘This is good. This is what I wanted,’ and gone home?”

   p. 213

5. 

   Fine? All right? Now leave me alone. You’re stinking up the place with an air of contented idiocy.

   p. 570

6. 

   Within moments he was roaring his pleasure. Nothing these men did could touch him. He was a destroyer, a conqueror, a glorious maelstrom of death. A god.

   p. 119

7. 

   Morality is not a thing you can simply doff to put on the helm of battle, then put back on when you’re done with the slaughter.

   p. 289

8. 

   “That guy,” a girl’s voice said, “is creepy.”…

   “I mean, old men are all creepy, Lift said. “Seriously. All wrinkly and ‘Hey, want some sweets?’ and ‘Oh, listen to this boring story.’ I’m on to them. They can act nice all they want, but nobody gets old without ruining a whole buncha lives.”

   p. 553

9. 

   “Why, Jasnah? Why have you always denied me?”

   “Other than the fact that you are a detestable buffoon who achieves only the lowest level of mediocrity, as it is the best your limited mind can imagine? I can’t possibly think of a reason.”

   p. 526

10. 

    “Power is a knife,” Wit said, taking his seat. “A terrible, dangerous knife that can’t be wielded without cutting yourself. We joked about stupidity, but in reality most people aren’t stupid. Many are simply frustrated at how little control they have over their lives. They lash out. Sometimes in spectacular ways…”

    p. 683

11. 

    It was gratifying to see how much one could accomplish in both politics and trade by liberally murdering the other fellow’s soldiers.

    p. 659

12. 

    They were too theatrical—and there were too many of them—for all to be truly deranged. This was a fad. A way of dealing with unexpected events and giving some shape to lives that had been turned upside down.

    That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. A group of people all trying to impress one another was always more dangerous than the lone psychopath.

    p. 630