Caroline > Caroline's Quotes

“At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different," Sazed said. "Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“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, Oathbringer

“The most important word a man can say are, "I will do better.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Power was an illusion of perception, as Jasnah had said. The first step to being in control was to see yourself as capable of being in control.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“In my painful experience, the truth may be simple, but it is rarely easy.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Love wasn’t about being right or wrong, but about standing up and helping when your partner’s back was bowed.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?”
“Dumb luck,” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“A woman's strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses to be, but in the power to choose that role.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“Just sitting quietly, doing nothing at all, your brain churns through more information in thirty seconds than the Hubble Space Telescope has processed in thirty years. A morsel of cortex one cubic millimeter in size—about the size of a grain of sand—could hold two thousand terabytes of information, enough to store all the movies ever made, trailers included, or about 1.2 billion copies of this book.”
― Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
― Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

“Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.”
― Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

“Unknowing ignorance is preferable to informed stupidity.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“She’s only seventeen years old,” Llarimar said. “I can’t imagine being
married to the God King at her age.”
“I can’t imagine you being married to the God King at any age, Scoot,”
Lightsong said. Then he pointedly cringed. “Actually, yes I can imagine it,
and the dress looks painfully inelegant on you. Make a note to have my
imagination flogged for its insolence in showing me that par tic u lar sight.”
“I’ll put it in line right behind your sense of decorum, Your Grace,”
Llarimar said dryly.
“Don’t be silly,” Lightsong said, taking a sip of wine. “I haven’t had one
of those in years.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“A person knows when they’re in darkness, even when they can’t see. -Nightblood”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“There is no traced-out path to lead man to his salvation; he must constantly invent his own path. But, to invent it, he is free, responsible, without excuse, and every hope lies within him. It”
― Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others

“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“When sleep is abundant, minds flourish. When it is deficient, they don't.”
― Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

“Insist on going to the cremation, insist on going to the burial. Insist on being involved, even if it is just brushing your mother’s hair as she lies in her casket. Insist on applying her favorite shade of lipstick, the one she wouldn’t dream of going to the grave without. Insist on cutting a small lock of her hair to place in a locket or a ring. Do not be afraid. These are human acts, acts of bravery and love in the face of death and loss.”
― Caitlin Doughty, From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death

“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law

“Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

“No one ever accomplished anything by being content with who they were, Shallan,” Adolin said. “We accomplish great things by reaching toward who we could become.” “As long as it’s what you want to become. Not what someone else thinks you should become.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

“Stand aside, and try not to catch fire if I shed sparks of genius.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“When the sky’s falling, I take shelter under bullshit.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.”
― Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair

“A piece of writing is a trap,” he said cheerily, “and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive—which is knowledge—alive forever.”
― Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair

“Books are a form of magic—” the doctor lifted the volume he had just laid on the stack, “—because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm.”
― Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair