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“Please,” Shallan said to the sphere. “I need you to become fire.”
Pattern buzzed, speaking with a new voice, interpreting the sphere’s words. “I am a stick,” he said. He sounded satisfied.
“You could be fire,” Shallan said.
“I am a stick.”
The stick was not particularly eloquent. She supposed that she shouldn’t be surprised.
“Why don’t you become fire instead?”
“I am a stick.”
“How do I make it change?” Shallan asked of Pattern.
“Mm . . . I do not know. You must persuade it. Offer it truths, I think?” He sounded agitated. “This place is dangerous for you. For us. Please. Speed.”
She looked back at the stick.
“You want to burn.”
“I am a stick.”
“Think how much fun it would be?”
“I am a stick.”
“Stormlight,” Shallan said. “You could have it! All that I’m holding.”
A pause. Finally, “I am a stick.”
“Sticks need Stormlight. For . . . things . . .” Shallan blinked away tears of fatigue.
“I am—”
“—a stick,” Shallan said.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“You are whatever you want to be, Wayne. You’re the wind. You’re the stars. You are all endless things.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Lost Metal

“Ten spears go to battle," he whispered, "and nine shatter. Did the war forge the one that remained? No, Amaran. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“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