The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)

by Brandon Sanderson

Movements and reactions, actions and consequences—these were the essence of Allomancy.

She pretended still. Pretended not to be the urchin who had grown up starving on the streets, a girl who had been beaten far more often than she had been befriended.

“Good men don’t need to become legends.” She opened her eyes, looking up at him. “They simply do what’s right anyway.”

“It can’t be all that important, can it?” he asked. “I mean, if everybody’s forgotten what that last metal does, then it must not be very powerful.”

In a three-way negotiation, the weakest party is the one with the most power—because his allegiance added to either of the other two will choose the eventual winner.”

The Hero of Ages traveled to the Well of Ascension to defeat the Deepness, she thought. But the prophecies all said that the Hero shouldn’t take the Well’s power for himself. He was supposed to give it up, trust in the power itself to destroy the Deepness. Rashek didn’t do that—he took the power. Wouldn’t that mean that the Deepness was never defeated? Why then wasn’t the world destroyed?

Marsh did not return.

“My experience has been that the man is usually made by the situation. Kelsier was a selfish dandy until the Pits nearly broke him.”

It seemed to him that Mistborn spent too much of their existence hiding. True, anonymity offered some limited freedom. But his experience had been that it bound them more than it freed them. It let them be controlled, and it let society pretend that they didn’t exist.

Day was an impatient sigh awaiting the night.

Once Elend had been her peace, but he was changing.

Your peace? All you do is worry and fight to protect him while he hides like a lil B

“Anonymity. Hiding, even when you’re with others. Being quiet, unobtrusive. Forcing yourself to stay apart—emotionally, at least. It’s a way of life. A protection.”

but 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.

“Do not be so hard on the child. She is a product of her upbringing, as are you. If you judge her worth based on frivolities, then you are doing the same as those who judge you based on your simple clothing.”

I always worry that he can’t understand me … but can I really understand him?

Yet a few insistent swirls of mist wavered in the air, as if trying to defy the sun, to continue to cloak the city, to stave off the light of day.…

In the end, my pride may have doomed us all.

I did not want this information—but neither could I pass by the opportunity to discover it.”

“Sometimes people only seem determined upon one course because they have been offered no other options.”

Zane didn’t make sense. He didn’t have to. That was perhaps one of the advantages of being insane.

“He’s a kandra, Vin,” Elend repeated. “I don’t think those men could have killed him; I doubt even a Mistborn could.”

He is not an evil man, but he is a ruthless one.

You can afford to seem worried, but you mustn’t ever seem uncertain.

She is hiding things. She does it all the time. But that didn’t stop him from trusting her.

But somehow the possibility that some would escape—the youngest crewmembers, the ones still inexperienced enough to hope—made

They can take your crown, but they can’t take your honor.”

“Survival is not a luxury often afforded to leaders,” Tindwyl said. “When they accept the devotion of others, they must accept the responsibility that comes with it. This people will die—but they need not die feeling betrayed.”

“There is much to be said for subtlety, Lord Cett,” Penrod said. “Patience brings the greater prize.”

Which was more potent? The pain of memory, or the pain of forgetting?

Alendi’s height struck me the first time I saw him, it read. Here was a man who was small of stature, but who seemed to tower over others, a man who demanded respect.