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Brandon Sanderson
263 quotes
“Curious, how quickly tyrants grow religious. It must that be convenient to tell yourself that your murders belong to the Almighty instead.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He needed more than vague explanations and abstract ideas—but those were the very soul of art. If you could explain something perfectly, then you’d never need art. That was the difference between a table and a beautiful woodcutting. You could explain the table: its purpose, its shape, its nature. The woodcutting you simply had to experience.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But you should try to understand what they want out of life, and respect that, rather than projecting onto them what you think they should want out of life.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are a man with complicated beliefs, who does not accept everything you are told. You decide how you are defined. Don’t surrender that to them. They will gleefully take the chance to define you, if you allow it.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who would have thought that bearing an ancient, divine mantle of power and honor would involve so many meetings?”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my painful experience, the truth may be simple, but it is rarely easy.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jasnah couldn’t help but smile. For over a decade, she’d dreamed of uniting the best minds of the kingdom in a coordinated effort. She’d been ignored; all anyone had wanted to discuss was her lack of belief in their god. Well, they were focused now. Turned out the end of the world had to actually arrive before people would take it seriously.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every army needed someone to run at the front and soak up arrows.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a frantic, insane brawl for power.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Taravangian did not believe in any religion, for they were unwieldy things, designed to fill gaps in human understanding with nonsensical explanations, allowing people to sleep well at night, granting them a false sense of comfort and control and preventing them from stretching further for true understanding.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fine? All right? Now leave me alone. You’re stinking up the place with an air of contented idiocy.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was gratifying to see how much one could accomplish in both politics and trade by liberally murdering the other fellow’s soldiers.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Child, when they were but babes, I had already lived dozens of lifetimes. ‘Old’ is a word you use for worn shoes. I’m something else entirely.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be careful. People who aren’t me are prone to spontaneous bouts of sincerity.” “Which is bad?” “Of course! ‘Sincerity’ is a word people use to justify their chronic dullness.” “Well, I like sincere people,” Shallan said, raising her cup. “It’s delightful how surprised they look when you push them down the stairs.” “Now, that’s unkind. You shouldn’t push people down the stairs for being sincere. You push people down the stairs for being stupid.” “What if they’re sincere and stupid?” “Then you run.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What’s the point of goals, if not to spur you to something lofty?” “Yes, yes. Aim for the sun. That way if you miss, at least your arrow will fall far away, and the person it kills will likely be someone you don’t know.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These are the men…well, these are the men who actually change the world. And they terrify me. For men never see as far as they think they do.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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…”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An army was the sort of thing everyone wanted to have, so long as it was off doing important things elsewhere.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I used to take the terrible things that had happened to me,” he said, “as proof that there was no god. Then in some of my darkest moments, I took my life as proof there must be something up there, for only intentional cruelty could offer an explanation.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Funny, isn’t it, how so many of our stories start the same way, but have opposing endings? In half, the child ignores her parents, wanders out into the woods, and gets eaten. In the other half she discovers great wonders. There aren’t many stories about the kids who say, ‘Yes, I shall not go into the forest. I’m glad my parents explained that is where the monsters live.’”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You’re not a monster, Shallan,” Wit whispered. “Oh, child. The world is monstrous at times, and there are those who would have you believe that you are terrible by association.” “I am.” “No. For you see, it flows the other direction. You are not worse for your association with the world, but it is better for its association with you.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That was the coward’s route. Wishing for ignorance.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Being a human was about making sense of chaos, finding meaning among the random elements of the world.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” “I dragged it out back and clubbed it senseless for getting me into the army.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That was rude.” “Rudeness doesn’t imply untruth though.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kaladin had never had much time for art. Either the picture depicted something useful—like a map—or it was basically pointless.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes, a hypocrite is nothing more than a man who is in the process of changing.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Order was the very substance of rule. If things were organized, control could be asserted.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“New recruits might get bored by guard duty, but you’ll never find a veteran complaining about a nice quiet afternoon of not being stabbed.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best indication of what human beings will do is not what they think, but what the record says similar groups have done in the past.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what' you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and "how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.’”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All life worked in concert, he’d been taught in his youth. Everything but men, who refused their place. Who destroyed instead of added.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don’t you care?” “About a man I don’t know?” Azure said. “In danger from a threat you can’t define, happening at a time you can’t pinpoint?” She folded her arms. “Forgive me for not sharing in your anxiety.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 108, “Honor’s Path” (p. 1011)
“When has any tyrant ever said to himself, ‘This is enough’?”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1051 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 113, “The Thing Men Do Best” (p. 1051)
“Who cares what your ancestors did, when the enemy is trying to kill you right now?”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1052 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 113, “The Thing Men Do Best” (p. 1052)
“Be wary,” Shallan whispered, “of anyone who claims to be able to see the future.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1084 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 115, “The Wrong Passion” (p. 1084)
“Some problems could not be fixed with a lie.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1084 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 115, “The Wrong Passion” (p. 1084)
“The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1133 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 118, “The Weight of it All” (p. 1133)
“You could not arrive at excellence by the average of these people. Excellence was an individual quest, not a group effort.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1152 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 120, “The Spear That Would Not Break” (p. 1152)
“It becomes the responsibility of every man, upon realizing he lacks the truth to seek it out.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1190 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 121, “Ideals” (p. 1190)
“The sea was so open, so welcoming. Pay her a little respect, and she would carry you anywhere you wished to go. She’d even feed you along the way and lull you to sleep with her songs at night.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sea was a strange mistress indeed. Open. Welcoming. Inviting. Sometimes a little too much so.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source