Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

“If it weren’t for that capacity, then what good would choices be? If we never had the power to do terrible things, then what heroism would it be to resist?”

But again, if there were no cost, no sacrifice, then would it be heroism at all?

“Perhaps the question isn’t ‘What use is art?’” Wit mused. “Perhaps even that simple question misses the point. It’s like asking the use of having hands, or walking upright, or growing hair. Art is part of us, Kaladin. That’s the use; that’s the reason. It exists because on some fundamental level we need it. Art exists to be made.”

“A virtue is something that is valuable even if it gives you nothing. A virtue persists without payment or compensation. Positive thinking is great. Vital. Useful. But it has to remain so even if it gets you nothing. Belief, truth, honor … if these exist only to get you something, you’ve missed the storming point.”

“Have you ever wondered who you would be if there was no one you needed to save, no one you needed to kill? You’ve lived for others for so long, Kaladin. What happens when you try living for you?” Wit held up his finger. “I know you can’t answer yet. Go and find out.”

Free time was the greatest blessing in the world.

May you have the courage someday to walk away. And the wisdom to recognize that day when it arrives.

They tried to turn dark, but he kept battering them back with positive thoughts, like soldiers fighting on his behalf. Reminders that he had succeeded in the past, and could succeed again. Reminders that an idea wasn’t true just because it entered his head. The darkness was still there and wanted him to believe things would never change, but this little victory proved the opposite. Because while he might never be rid of the thoughts permanently, he was done letting them win.

I have a purpose, that thought soldier proclaimed. I am here because of my choices, and I am capable of making such decisions.

Tonight, he wrote a different story for himself. Of a man who loved music. Of a man who had time for music. He found in it some piece of his soul that had always been missing, a loss he’d never had words to explain. He learned a new language that night, full of new adjectives for who Kaladin was, and who he could be.

“Do understand,” Kaladin said, “it … it’s not an easy fix. You have to practice it day after day, even when your mind doesn’t want to. Especially when it feels like it’s too hard. Learning to resist your own mind is difficult, Szeth.”

“So, storms, I don’t know,” Kaladin said. “Part of me feels like he’s a lost cause, Syl. He doesn’t want my help. I should leave him alone and focus my attention on what the Wind needs me to do. Szeth is too far gone.” “People didn’t leave you alone when you thought you were too far gone.”

“The truth is, there’s a balance. You are a product of what life, society, and people have done to you. You bear blame for what you did, but others bear a lot of it too. It’s never too late to accept that your past might not be an excuse, but it is a valid explanation. So tell me. What do you—Szeth-son-Neturo—want for yourself? With no influence from anyone else, not even me. What do you want?”

Continuing to nurture that nugget of resentment was like taking a stick and coating it in crem—if she wasn’t careful, the truth would rot away inside. She’d be left with hollow lies.

Yet I worry that in our zeal, we forget that merely because something is more standard or conventional, that doesn’t make it bad. “My values are shaped by those around me, whom I respect. That makes it impossible to separate what my father wants of me from what I want for myself—his ideals have in large part become my ideals. To try to separate myself completely from those influences would also be a rejection of who I am.

A feint could work even if you knew it was a feint, because it left you worried about what else you might be missing.

Like all Cryptics, Testament had come seeking the most wonderful lies. The contradictions that made humans able to function. Stories. Specifically, the one she’d told herself: the performance that she was happy and strong and not terrified. A lie that made it possible to shine when all the world was dark.

they didn’t know him. They didn’t care to know him. He was always there, but never relevant. The quiet one at the edge of the conversation.

In the long run, it’s better to ask and deal with it if you’re wrong. Could … one just push through awkwardness too?

“The thing is, the deepest truths always sound a little trite. Because we all know them, and feel foolish being reminded.”

“A hundred days of preparation are needed for one day of spontaneity,”

“I believe that in nothing are we so blessed,” Kadash continued, “as we are in our ability to accept one another as imperfect, yet trying.

The question is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.”

“Maybe that’s the point. Maybe emotions don’t make us weak. Maybe they teach us. Like the pain of touching a hot stove. They show us what we should do, and remind us what we should not.”

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

I am against dogma of any variety. God, nationality, or philosophy—when you become a slave to it without capacity to change or reconsider, that is the problem.”

“The burden you ten carried,” Kaladin said, “is unfair. And while trauma doesn’t excuse what you did, it does explain it. We can’t let you, or Ishar, hurt others—but that doesn’t mean you weren’t hurt yourselves. You have a right to receive help.”

“Because of the fire,” she said. “There is no need to trust someone who couldn’t hurt you, Dalinar. I trust you because you can hold that fire and not be burned.”

“Discard all the rest. All the thoughts, philosophies, arguments, and even the memories of gods. Do not do what they would have you do. Do what you, Dalinar Kholin, would do.”

Dalinar found himself standing tall. He was deeply flawed, but if those flaws were obvious to him now … that was because he had grown to the point he could acknowledge them.

His worth did not come from whether he helped. Only in whether he tried.

A promise stood as long as you were still trying. A promise understood that sometimes your best wasn’t enough. A promise cried with you when all went to Damnation. A promise came to help when you could barely stand. Because a promise knew that sometimes, being there was all you could offer.

Kaladin dropped to the stones, a strangled sound escaping his lips, trying to force breath into his lungs—his body taut, rigid. When he felt like this, he just wanted to give up and not move. Today it hit him like a physical force, a suffocating darkness that would crush him. Not out of existence—he’d have blessed that—but into a ball of pain and self-loathing that would never end.

So often, it began with just looking up. That was the first step in clawing free of this darkness.

The change to become this newest version of himself wasn’t about abandoning what he admired about himself. It was only about finding a healthy way to handle it.

“I will not lie,” Kaladin said, “and promise you that all future days will be warm. But Ishar, you will be warm again. And that is another thing entirely to promise.”

what you feel is what I feel. I realize that on one hand, that is no consolation. Your pain, your sorrow—your darkness—doesn’t transform because another experienced it. Still, it seems to help, doesn’t it? Knowing you aren’t alone.”

How could he help? He was barely functional. It was all he could do to stand there. But stand. Kaladin. DID.

“I will protect myself, so that I may continue to protect others.”

the destination wasn’t about a place, but about a Connection. It was about who you had become, not about where you arrived.

After admitting he couldn’t help everyone, with a little time he came to the natural ultimate conclusion—that if he wanted to keep doing what he could do, he’d need to look out for himself.

“We do have to make awful decisions sometimes. They will be flawed because we are flawed. That is not a reason, however, to give up on finding better solutions.

“You spent all this time learning that you can’t sacrifice yourself for everyone else,” she said. “You can’t do this.” “Pardon,” he said gently, placing his hand on hers, “but that is not what I learned, Syl.” She looked up at him. “I learned that I don’t have to make that sacrifice,” he explained. “I can’t protect everyone, and I have made peace with that. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to do what I can, and I’ve learned that I can help without losing myself.

“Nobility has nothing to do with blood, Ishar. But it has everything to do with heart.”

“Thank you,” Renarin whispered to his father. “For being proud of me. For showing me the heights we can reach, regardless of the depths we once knew.”