Stormlight Archive Quotes

“Dalinar turned to him. Then, the highprince laid a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder, the gauntlet gleaming blue, mismatched with the rest of his slate-grey armor. “I don’t know what has been done to you. I can only guess what your life has been like. But know this. You will not be bridgemen in my camp, nor will you be slaves.”
“But…”
“What is a man’s life worth?” Dalinar asked softly.
“The slavemasters say one is worth about two emerald broams,” Kaladin said, frowning.
“And what do you say?”
“A life is priceless,” he said immediately, quoting his father.
Dalinar smiled, wrinkle lines extending from the corners of his eyes. “Coincidentally, that is the exact value of a Shardblade. So today, you and your men sacrificed to buy me twenty-six hundred priceless lives. And all I had to repay you with was a single priceless sword.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Do not deny your own talents simply because you envy another's.”
― Brandon Sanderson

“I'm not odd! I'm beautiful and articulate”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“There were no symbols on the breastplate, because he was not Radiant. Adolin had no idea what he was, other than the son of both Dalinar and Evi Kholin. The product of both of their hopes. He was Adolin Kholin. A man with very good friends.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Wind and Truth

“The most important words a man can say are, "I will do better." These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.
The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says "Journey before Destination." Some may call it a simple a platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us.
But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination.
To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.”
― Brandon Sanderson

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

“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've 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.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Kaldıramayacağı bir silahı olan çocuktan korkmadığım gibi, düşünmeyen bir adamın aklından da asla korkmayacağım.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“Then we shall do an evaluation. Answer truthfully and do not exaggerate, as I will soon discover your lies. Feign no false modesty, either. I haven't the patience for a simperer.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“He joined an overwhelming force of Voidbringers in all shapes and sizes. How could they fight this?
How could anyone ever fight this?
Navani fell to her knees above the broken edge of the wall. And then she noticed something else. Something incongruous, something her mind refused—at first—to accept. A solitary figure had somehow gotten around the troops who had already entered the city. He now picked his way across the rubble, wearing a blue uniform, carrying a book tucked under his arm.
Unaided and defenseless, Dalinar Kholin stepped into the gap in the broken wall, and there faced the nightmare alone.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Lift?” Dalinar asked in Azish. “Didn’t you leave?”
“Sure did. What’s wrong with your army?”
“They’re his now.”
“Did you forget to feed them?”
Dalinar glanced at the soldiers, standing in ranks that felt more like packs than they did true battle formations. “Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough.”
“Were you … thinkin’ you’d fight them all on your own?” Lift said. “With a book?”
“There is someone else for me to fight here.”
“… With a book?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “Sure, all right. Why not? What do you want me to do?”
The girl didn’t match the conventional ideal of a Knight Radiant. Not even five feet tall, thin and wiry, she looked more urchin than soldier.
She was also all he had.
“Do you have a weapon?” he asked.
“Nope. Can’t read.”
“Can’t…” Dalinar looked down at his book. “I meant a real weapon, Lift.”
“Oh! Yeah, I’ve got one a those.” She thrust her hand to the side. Mist formed into a small, glittering Shardblade.
… Or no, it was just a pole. A silver pole with a rudimentary crossguard.
Lift shrugged. “Wyndle doesn’t like hurting people.”
Doesn’t like … Dalinar blinked. What kind of world did he live in where swords didn’t like hurting people?”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Then we shall do an evaluation. Answer truthfully an do not exaggerate, as I will soon discover your lies. Feign no false modesty, either. I haven't the patience for a simperer.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“She met Darkness’s descending Blade with her own weapon. Not a sword. Lift didn’t know crem about swords. Her weapon was just a silvery rod. It glowed in the darkness, and it blocked Darkness’s blow, though his attack left her arms quivering.
Ow, Wyndle’s voice said in her head.
Rain beat around them, and crimson lightning blasted down behind Darkness, leaving stark afterimages in Lift’s eyes.
“You think you can fight me, child?” he growled, holding his Blade against her rod. “I who have lived immortal lives? I who have slain demigods and survived Desolations? I am the Herald of Justice.”
“I will listen,” Lift shouted, “to those who have been ignored!”
― Brandon Sanderson, Edgedancer

“Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination. I will protect those who cannot protect themselves. I will protect even those I hate so long as it is right.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Stormlight Archive, Books 1-4: The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, Rhythm of War

“Well,” Shallan said to the captain, blushing but still eager to speak, “I was just thinking this: You say that my beauty coaxed the winds to deliver us to Kharbranth with haste. But wouldn’t that imply that on other trips, my lack of beauty was to blame for us arriving late?” “Well … er …” “So in reality,” Shallan said, “you’re telling me I’m beautiful precisely one-sixth of the time.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings (1 of 5) [Dramatized Adaptation]

“I exist. I do what is needed. Eventually, I will no longer exist. That is enough.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Wind and Truth

“El dinero está detrás de todas las guerras”
― Brandon Sanderson

“He took the teapot and poured two cups. She was grateful. And also frustrated. Not being able to walk was annoying, and that emotion people seemed to understand. But few understood the sense of embarrassment she felt—despite knowing she shouldn’t—at being a burden. While she appreciated the concern people showed for her, she worked so hard to be able to do things on her own. When people accidentally undercut that, it became more difficult to ignore the part of her that whispered lies. That told her that because she was less capable in a few areas, she was worthless in general.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Dawnshard

“I accept it, Stormfather! I accept that there will be those I cannot protect!”
The storm rumbled, and he felt warmth surrounding him, Light infusing him. He heard Syl gasp, and a familiar voice, not the Stormfather’s.
THESE WORDS ARE ACCEPTED.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

“They came from another world,’ ” Navani said, reading from her sheet. “ ‘Using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges. They destroyed their lands and have come to us begging.
“ ‘We took them in, as commanded by the gods. What else could we do? They were a people forlorn, without home. Our pity destroyed us. For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind.
“ ‘Beware the otherworlders. The traitors. Those with tongues of sweetness, but with minds that lust for blood. Do not take them in. Do not give them succor. Well were they named Voidbringers, for they brought the void. The empty pit that sucks in emotion. A new god. Their god.
“ ‘These Voidbringers know no songs. They cannot hear Roshar, and where they go, they bring silence. They look soft, with no shell, but they are hard. They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“But … that law was the product of the many. Szeth had been exiled because of the consensus of the many. He had served master after master, most of them using him to attain terrible or at least selfish goals. You could not arrive at excellence by the average of these people. Excellence was an individual quest, not a group effort.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“What fools we can be, Taravangian said, resting fingers on the picture of flowers. We never know as much as we think. Perhaps in that, the smart me has always been the more stupid one.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“He poked the man in the shoulder again. “And so, dear sir, when I say that you are the very embodiment of repulsiveness, I am merely looking to improve my art. You look so ugly, it seems that someone tried—and failed—to get the warts off your face through aggressive application of sandpaper. You are less a human being, and more a lump of dung with aspirations. If someone took a stick and beat you repeatedly, it could only serve to improve your features.
“Your face defies description, but only because it nauseated all the poets. You are what parents use to frighten children into obedience. I’d tell you to put a sack over your head, but think of the poor sack! Theologians use you as proof that God exists, because such hideousness can only be intentional.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Sometimes the prize is not worth the costs. The means by which we achieve victory are as important as the victory itself. - Dalinar”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“You still think I’m too optimistic, don’t you?’ Shallan said. ‘It’s not your fault,’ Kaladin said. ‘I’d rather be like you. I’d rather not have lived the life I have. I would that the world was only full of people like you, Shallan Davar.’ ‘People who don’t understand pain.’ ‘Oh, all people understand pain,’ Kaladin said. ‘That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s . . .’ ‘The sorrow,’ Shallan said softly, ‘of watching a life crumble? Of struggling to grab it and hold on, but feeling hope become stringy sinew and blood beneath your fingers as everything collapses?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘The sensation – it’s not sorrow, but something deeper – of being broken. Of being crushed so often, and so hatefully, that emotion becomes something you can only wish for. If only you could cry, because then you’d feel something. Instead, you feel nothing. Just . . . haze and smoke inside. Like you’re already dead.’ He stopped in the chasm. She turned and looked to him. ‘The crushing guilt,’ she said, ‘of being powerless. Of wishing they’d hurt you instead of those around you. Of screaming and scrambling and hating as those you love are ruined, popped like a boil. And you have to watch their joy seeping away while you can’t do anything. They break the ones you love, and not you. And you plead. Can’t you just beat me instead?’ ‘Yes,’ he whispered. Shallan nodded, holding his eyes. ‘Yes. It would be nice if nobody in the world knew of those things, Kaladin Stormblessed. I agree. With everything I have.’ He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken. Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway. It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life. ‘How?’ he asked. She shrugged lightly. ‘Helps if you’re crazy.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance (3 of 5) [Dramatized Adaptation]

“A mandate from God—the very same argument the Hierocracy used for seizing control of the government.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer (2 of 6) [Dramatizeed Adaptation]

“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 many people together, their cultures, ideas, and stenches rubbed off on one another. The result wasn’t civilization. It was contained chaos, pressurized, bottled up so it couldn’t escape. There was a tension to cities. You could breathe it, feel it in every step.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer (3 of 6) [Dramatized Adaptation]

“You followed men before. They caused your pain, Szeth-son-Neturo. Your agony is because you did not follow something unchanging and pure. You picked men instead of an ideal.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer (3 of 6) [Dramatized Adaptation]

“You, always about dreams. My soul weeps. Farewell, weeping soul. My dreams... about, always, You.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Life Before Death. Journey Before Destination.”
― Brandon Sanderson