Brandon Sanderson Quotes - Page 3

Is human nature to believe that other places and other times are better than the here and now.
Brandon Sanderson
What was the purpose, then, of everything they taught in here? If it couldn't prevent men from acting like monsters?
Brandon Sanderson
It seems that the rebels found the chaos of transition more difficult to accept than the tyranny they had known before. They joyfully welcomed back authority-even oppressive authority-for it was less painful for them than uncertainty.
Brandon Sanderson
I froze, shocked. (And don't try to claim that you did anything different the first time a government bureaucrat pulled a gun on you.)
Brandon Sanderson
I'm an expert on one-armed Herdazian jokes. 'Lopen,' my mother always says, 'you must learn these to laugh before others do. Then you steal the laughter from them, and have it all for yourself.
Brandon Sanderson
Stealing regular stuff was no fun. She wanted a real challenge. Over the last two years, she'd picked the most difficult places to enter. Then she'd snuck in.And eaten their dinners.
Brandon Sanderson
Oh my lovely princess,"Raoden whispered. "You probably mean well, but handing these people food is the worst thing you could do to them."-Brandon Sanderson(Elantris)
Brandon Sanderson
light makes shadow. Truth makes lies.
Brandon Sanderson
It’s not a lie,” Shallan said, “if everyone understands and knows what it means.”“Mm. Those are some of the best lies.
Brandon Sanderson
I don't want to make people mad. I just... well, how can people get better if you don't tell them what you honestly think?
Brandon Sanderson
The only time you seem honest is when you’re insulting someone!”“The only honest things I can say to you are insults.
Brandon Sanderson
People today...it seems they are good, or sometimes evil, mostly by inertia, not by choice.
Brandon Sanderson
The truth is, most people who do what you'd call 'wrong' do it for what they call 'right' reasons.
Brandon Sanderson
I need something, Wax. A place to look. You always did the thinking.”“Yes, having a brain helps with that, surprisingly.
Brandon Sanderson
The rest of the time, I don't do so much thinkin'. 'Cuz if I did, I'd go running back to where things is simple. You see?
Brandon Sanderson
The rest of the time, I don't do so much thinkin'. 'Cuz if I did, I'd go runnin' back to where things is simple.
Brandon Sanderson
As accurate as a blind man pissing during an earthquake.”“Wow...,” I breathed.She frowned
Brandon Sanderson
Oh,” Obliteration continued, “I think that you’ll find a man can do many things thought impossible, if he tries hard enough.
Brandon Sanderson
Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.
Brandon Sanderson
I didn't have all the answers, but at least I had a goal. Revenge. Who cared if it would eat me up inside and leave me hollow?
Brandon Sanderson
Those dear to me took fright for my safety and, perhaps, my sanity. Kings, they explained, do not walk like beggars for hundreds of miles. My response was that if a beggar could managed the feat, then why not a king? Did they think me less capable than a beggar?Sometimes I think that I am. The beggar knows much that the king can only guess. And yet who draws up the codes for begging ordinances? Often I wonder what my experience in life--my easy life following the Desolation, and my current level of comfort--has given me of any true experience to use in making laws. If we had to rely on what we knew, kings would only be of use in creating laws regarding the proper heating of tea and the cushioning of thrones.
Brandon Sanderson
Books have great value, actions have greater value.
Brandon Sanderson
If you can read the book and say, ‘Space Marines, YEEEAAAHHH!’ That’s Military Science Fiction.” (Brigham Young writing lecture, March 2012)
Brandon Sanderson
If we stop helping people because we’re afraid, or ambivalent or whatever, then we lose. Let them do evil. I’ll stop them.
Brandon Sanderson
And are you going to explain why you consider competing with me to be the most sincere form of compliment?” “Of course I am,” Lightsong said. “My dear, have you ever known me to make an inflammatorily ridiculous statement without providing an equally ridiculous explanation to substantiate it?” “Of course not,” she agreed. “You are nothing if not exhaustive in your self-congratulatory made-up logic.” “I am rather exceptional in that regard.
Brandon Sanderson
He didn’t recruit me,” Cett pointed out. “I got pulled by my balls into this little fiasco.”“I wish I cared enough to apologize,” Elend said, staring at them.
Brandon Sanderson
Heavens, no," Wax said. "If I approved of half the thngs Wayne does, Harmony would probably strike me on the spot.
Brandon Sanderson
I let out a sound that was definitely not a whimper. It was something far more manly, no matter what it sounded like.
Brandon Sanderson
There was no correcting past mistakes, especially since he could see no real 'mistakes' he had made. He had done the best he could, and that had proven insufficient.
Brandon Sanderson
You want to be competent? she thought. You want to learn to be in control of what goes on around you, rather than just being pushed around? Then you’ll have to learn to deal with failure.
Brandon Sanderson
Somehow in the chaos and mess she'd discovered who she was. Not a girl of the streets, though that was where she'd been raised. Not a woman of the court, though she appreciated the beauty and the grace of the balls. Someone else. Someone she liked.
Brandon Sanderson
When I finally lie down, I find sleep elusive. The same thoughts that trouble me during the day are only compounded by the stillness of night.
Brandon Sanderson
Magic works best for me when it aligns with scientific principles.
Brandon Sanderson
If men should read these words, let them know that power is a heavy burden. Seek not to be bound by its chains.
Brandon Sanderson
Everything is a contest. All dealings among men are a contest in which some will succeed and others fail. And some are failing quite spectacularly.
Brandon Sanderson
Remember why we live. Remember warmth, remember good food. Remember friends, and song, and evenings spent around the hearth.
Brandon Sanderson
Before the Wright brothers flew, flying was fantasy. Before the civil rights movement, people getting along together and the races being equal was a fantasy. Things change because we imagine a different world, a world that is not. And I think that imagination is one of the most important and defining aspects of human existence: our ability to imagine a world that is not.
Brandon Sanderson
He actually did it, didn't he?" Marsh said, shaking his head in wonder. "That bastard. There are two things I'll never forgive him for. The first is for stealing my dream of overthrowing the Final Empire, then actually succeeding at it."Vin paused. "And the second?"Marsh turned spike-heads towards her. "Getting himself killed to do it.
Brandon Sanderson
She would always love him. But she would not cease to function because he was gone
Brandon Sanderson
I trust you with their lives,' Prof said, still writing, 'and them with yours. Don't betray that trust, son. Keep your impulses in check. Don't just act because you can; act because it's the right thing to do. If you keep that in mind, you'll be all right.
Brandon Sanderson
In a way, she'd rather trust him and be wrong than deal with the worry of mistrust.
Brandon Sanderson
I can't worry about everything at once, Elend thought with determination. I just have to trust. Trust in myself and keep going.
Brandon Sanderson
You trusted me enough to jump off the wall, and I caught you.
Brandon Sanderson
That's what trust is. It's about giving someone else power over you. Power to hurt you.
Brandon Sanderson
What kind of woman is still able to trust people after everything she's been through? If she'd been Vin, she would have stabbed him in the back at the first opportunity, and that would have probably been the right thing to do. Yet, this girl just continued to trust. It was like finding a beautiful plant growing alone in a field of burnt ash.
Brandon Sanderson
That's kind of what trust is, isn't it? A willful self-delusion.
Brandon Sanderson
Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can--what we we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.
Brandon Sanderson
You learned this,” Kabsal said, lifting up her drawing of Jasnah, “from a book.”“Er…yes?”He looked back at the picture. “I need to read more.
Brandon Sanderson
Too many of us take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes.
Brandon Sanderson
a depressed person doesn't want you to try and cheer them up. It makes us sick.
Brandon Sanderson
Never go on a date unarmed.” Words of wisdom from my father. Well, my foster father. I was an orphan, of course. The best kings always are.
Brandon Sanderson
Men are more resilient than that, I think. Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.
Brandon Sanderson
Why is it you trust my daughter so much when others almost universally revile her?""I consider their disdain for her to be a recommendation," he said."She is a heretic.""She refused to join any of the devotaries because she did not believe in their teachings. Rather than compromise for the sake of appearances, she has been honest and has refused to make professions she does not believe. I find that a sign of honor.
Brandon Sanderson
Men like you preach change, but I wonder. Is this a battle we can really fight?”“You’re fighting it already, Goodman Mennis. You’re just losing horribly.
Brandon Sanderson
People are valuable, Mistress Vin, and so—therefore—are their beliefs.
Brandon Sanderson
There is something beyond. Though perhaps my belief is merely my own desire wishing it to be so.""You are not encouraging me. Aren't You omnipotent?""Hardly," Harmony said, smiling. "But I believe that parts of me could be.
Brandon Sanderson
If you perpetuate the dreams of the past, you stifle your own dreams of the future.
Brandon Sanderson
We create things to watch them grow, Ruin, she said. To take pleasure in seeing that which we love become more than it was before.
Brandon Sanderson
Control is the basis of all true power. Authority and strength are matters of perception
Brandon Sanderson
The measure of a person is not how much they have lived. It is not how easily they jump at a noise or how quick they are to show emotion. It's how they make use of what life has shown them.
Brandon Sanderson