Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4)

by Brandon Sanderson

“Heroism is a myth you tell idealistic young people—specifically when you want them to go bleed for you.

You don’t have to smile. You don’t have to talk. But if you’re going to be miserable, you might as well do it with friends.”

Not because Kaladin felt better; he was still miserable. Yet the misery did lessen around others, and it required Kaladin to keep up a semblance. To pretend. It might be a front, but he’d found that sometimes the front worked even on himself.

“But you can’t blame yourself for things that haven’t happened yet.

For the men chatting together softly, the change was in being shown sunlight again. In being reminded that the darkness did pass. But perhaps most important, the change was in not merely knowing that you weren’t alone—but in feeling it. Realizing that no matter how isolated you thought you were, no matter how often your brain told you terrible things, there were others who understood.

Though the relationship hadn’t worked out, he could now see that they’d both grown because of it.

“It’s war, you say. Nothing to be done about it. You act like it’s as inevitable as the sun and storms. But it’s not. You don’t have to kill each other.”

“If you spend your life knocking people down, you eventually find they won’t stand up for you.

“If we can choose, we can change.

He couldn’t do much about his situation, or the cracks that were ever widening inside him. But he could stay busy, and in so doing, not let those cracks define him.

It is the mark of humanity, Stormfather, to change.

The best and truest duty of a person is to add to the world. To create, and not destroy.

Words. I used to be good with words. I used to be good at a lot of things.

“Nothing is real,” Wit said. “At least by one measure of philosophy. So enjoy what you seem to be able to eat and don’t complain.”

“It won’t be like that for me,” Kaladin said. “You told me it would get worse.” “It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again.”

confusion leads a scholar to study further and push for secrets. No great discovery was ever made by a femalen or malen who was confident they knew everything.

We imagine that great people were always great, never questioning. I think they would hum to Ridicule at that idea.

do you know why I get up each day?” Lirin shook his head. “It’s hard sometimes,” Noril said, stirring. “Coming awake means leaving the nothingness, you know? Remembering the pain. But then I think, ‘Well, he gets up.’” “You mean Kaladin?” Lirin asked. “Yes, sir,” Noril said. “He’s got the emptiness, bad as I do. I can see it in him. We all can. But he gets up anyway. We’re trapped in here, and we all want to do something to help. We can’t, but somehow he can. “And you know, I’ve listened to ardents talk. I’ve been poked and prodded. I’ve been stuck in the dark. None of that worked as well as knowing this one thing, sir. He still gets up. He still fights. So I figure … I figure I can too.”

Part of being smart, in his experience, was about speed more than capacity.

How often has ‘hope’ prevented someone from standing up and doing what needs to be done, because they cling to a wish for everything to be different?”

“Ideas are not useless simply because they involve religious thinking,” Jasnah said. “Nearly all of the ancient scholars I revere were religious, and I appreciate how their faith shaped them, even if I do not appreciate the faith itself.”

Some people charged toward the goal, running for all they had. Others stumbled. But it wasn’t the speed that mattered. It was the direction they were going.

“But know this. You can kill me, but you can’t have what I have. You can never have it. Because I die knowing I’m loved.”

“You were terrified. I saw your eyes.” “Of course I was.” Tien looked at him as the charge began, and the enemy advanced up the hillside. “Who wouldn’t be afraid? Doesn’t change that I needed to be here. For them.”

I accept that there will be those I cannot protect!”

They vibrated together. Structure and nature. Knowledge and wonder. Mixing. The song of science itself.

“Cutting it a little tight, don’t you think, son?” “A surgeon must be timely and precise.”