Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

“Men are incongruent, walking contradictions. Solely in latching on to something firm, something inflexible, can they be guided. There must be a law. To rely on human choice is to rely upon chaos itself.”

“Memories are like wine, Szeth,” Kaladin said. “They ferment. If you never let them out, the pressure will simply keep building.”

The Heralds are essentially no more. They are rejected by their Blades.

A pleasant term for an unpleasant idea—people who must kill so ordinary men and women can live peaceful lives. Radiants must bathe in blood and tarnish their souls in order to forge peace.”

“Ideals are dead things,” Kaladin said, “unless they have people behind them. Laws exist not for themselves, but for those they serve.”

When you stared down death, it was the people who mattered.

This is Roshar. Nothing merely is. Everything thinks. Everything has a choice. Watch. As humans choose.

“This will start the bond,” Ishar said. “Only once it is complete can Vedel seal immortality upon us—using our Connection to Honor to tap into constantly rejuvenating Investiture from the Spiritual Realm, locking our souls at our current age. This way we can be reborn again and again.”

“At my age … well, loss isn’t an occasion, but a state of being.

Few combatants win on board or battlefield without first having won the fight against their own minds.

“But I am not pointless. My life. People’s lives. The meaning comes from us. Naturally, intrinsically. Like your boy and his poem. That’s what Nohadon meant in his book.” “I don’t know what comes next, Dalinar,” Wit said. “But I’m glad you are the one who will walk up to meet Odium. Because while you might not know the secret to defeating him, you have learned something more important. We’re not sending a soldier up those steps. We’re sending a king.”

You could never be smart enough. Jasnah had learned that. Nor could you just keep fighting forever. Kaladin had learned that. You couldn’t be strong enough, nor could you be perfectly honorable. That was what it was to be mortal. Sometimes you succeeded anyway. Sometimes you failed.