Evan Niewoehner

“The wrong people get far too much mileage out of things that sound nice,” Wit said. “Take it from a guy who is all too capable with a lie: nothing is easier to sell someone than the story they want to hear. The Passions are deeply insulting if you spare even a moment to consider. I once spoon-fed broth to a trembling child in a kingdom that no longer exists. I found her on a road leading away from a battlefield, after her parents—simple peasants—were slaughtered. Her elder brother lay dead a half mile behind, having starved. “You think that kid who starved didn’t want to eat? You think her parents didn’t want to escape the ravages of war badly enough? You think if they’d had more Passion, the cosmere would have saved them? How convenient to believe that people are poor because they didn’t care enough about being rich. That they just didn’t pray hard enough. So convenient to make suffering their own fault, rather than life being unfair and birth mattering more than aptitude. Or storming Passion.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Wind and Truth