Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4)

by Brandon Sanderson

“No it’s not,” Shallan said, offended. “Art and math are basically opposites.” “Mmm. No. All things are math. Art especially is math. You are math.”

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. It wouldn’t fix everything. But it was a start.

Strength before weakness. He was coming to understand that part of his first oath. He had discovered weakness in himself, but that wasn’t something to be ashamed of. Because of that weakness, he could help in ways nobody else could.

Where plants rotted, others often soon grew, and the scent of death was the same as the scent of life.

“If there is a god, then I think we could find him in the way we care about one another. Humans thinking about the wind, and honor, might have given you shape from formless power—but you’re your own person now. As I’m my own person, though my parents gave me shape.”

“I guess we both need to remember that whatever’s happening in our heads, whatever it was that created us, we get to choose. That’s what makes us people, Syl.”

Time. It was a sadistic master. It made adults of children—then gleefully, relentlessly, stole away everything it had given.

Should I protect all who venture out into me? “Yes.” Then do I stop being a storm, stop being me? “You can be a storm with mercy.” That defies the definition and soul of a storm, the Stormfather said. I must blow. I make this land exist. I carry seeds; I birth plants; I make the landscape permanent with crem. I provide Light. Without me, Roshar withers.

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

Gavilar Kholin—king, husband, occasional monster—had been searching for a way to kill a god.

“Everyone—humans, listeners, and apparently gods—deep down suspects that every failure is their own. If you reflect blame on them, most people will assume they are responsible.”

If he had to listen to one more lecture including terms like “exculpatory evidence” and “compensatory restitution,” he would ask them to execute him and be done with it.

You can’t know any of this, because you live on a giant ball of rock full of slime where everything is wet and cold all the time. This is a dog, Kaladin. They’re fluffy and loyal and wonderful.

“I know of just one on Roshar,” Wit noted, “and she prefers to hide her true form. This story isn’t about her, however, or any of the dragons I’ve met.

WHO

And as he did, the dog sadly thought to himself, ‘I could not become a dragon. I am an utter and complete failure.’

Oftentimes the greatest discoveries came not because a woman was looking for them, but because she was so engrossed in some other topic that she started making connections she never would have otherwise.

Literally chocolate chip cookies

True freedom couldn’t exist while someone else had power over you.

“Men hold grudges. It is one of our greatest failings. Sometimes families will continue a cycle of hatred for generations, all for some slight that no one remembers.

Tell me. Who is the strongest of mind? The woman whose emotions are always on her side? Or the woman whose own thoughts betray her? You have fought this fight every day of your life, Shallan. And you are not weak.”

“You are poised, you are smart, and you are always ready with a ploy; but when each of those things fails you, Jasnah, you are—above all else—paranoid.”

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.

Jasnah took comfort in the idea that there was no plan, that everything was random. She said that a chaotic universe meant the only actions of actual importance were the ones they decided were important. That gave people autonomy.

Navani loved her daughter, but couldn’t see it the same way. Organization and order existed in the very way the world worked. From the patterns on leaves to the system of compounds and chemical reactions. It all whispered to her.

“Journey before destination, you bastard.”