Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

I do not have answers, and there will always be some who denounce me for this decision I made. But let me teach a truth here that is often misunderstood: sometimes, it is not weakness, but strength, to stand up and walk away. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

“I see how your land survives. That grass … it doesn’t move, doesn’t react. Yet it feels as if it could swallow everything. Like it wants to consume me.” “It will, once you die,” Szeth said softly. “It will take all of us. Undoubtedly later than we deserve.”

Those who offer blanket condemnation are fools, for each situation deserves its own consideration, and rarely can you simply apply a saying—even one of mine—to a situation without serious weighing of the context. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

“I am very glad you did not get killed while I was not here. I should like to be there when you die. It is a thing friends do for friends.”

Their secret handshake. The secret was that secret handshakes were stupid, but sometimes you used them anyway. Mostly for making scared friends feel like they belonged.

As I fear not the child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

“But remember. Remember it can be lies.” “Why pay attention if it could all be lies?” “Because truth is just the lie that happened,”

Gram!” Gav said, his hand beside hers. “I really feel it. The tower is alive…” “All things are,” she said. “Whether it’s the cup you drink from, the home you live in, or the air you breathe. All of it is part of this world given us by the Almighty, and everything in this world is alive. It is one of the ways we know God loves us.”

As a king leaves a people with the gift of his absence, so that they may grow and solve their own problems, without his hand to always guide them. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

May you have the courage someday to walk away. And the wisdom to recognize that day when it arrives. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

He instead was most curious about the fact that two of the Shards appeared to be missing, completely vanished from interacting with the others. Hidden. One he understood with some effort. But Valor—where had Valor gone, and how did she hide from even his eyes?

The time has at last come for our stewardship to end.

Obviously, the passing of the Dawnshard was the first indication that this event was near. However, we find many other signs.

The impending events in Iri are another sign. The age of transitions has arrived.

I believe, sincerely, that the winds blowing in from the future indicate this will be the final confrontation of Honor and Odium.

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

We must travel to the Well of Control, within the shroud of the fragments of the dead moon.

There, we will find our destiny. We cannot stop him from destroying us. It is time.

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

Now, it stands to the accountability of reason that orders of Radiants, greatly interposed from common nature by their various oaths, should have had some controversions one to another. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 1

Of different note, as Vava will attest in great disbursement, is that within orders strife is unexpected, yet still vulgar, of a shape and manifold variety, that is often overlooked, still worthy of consideration. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 1

While Willshapers embraced this very sense of contrarity, an attitude that will come as no great surprise to any conversant with their predilections, and indeed might be found unexpected in its absence, the presence of such strife among Skybreakers is a source of no small stupefaction to many. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 1

This was what honor looked like sometimes: a withered husk dead on the floor.

Indeed, the presence of a Herald among them should have, to all reasonable understandings, and to the abridgment of expectation, led to stability of doctrine among this most specific of orders. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 1

Irid adjudges this reasoning spurious, given the Skybreaker air of exactitude, that dissention is inevitable, as they turn finer points of argument against one another. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 2

I challenge that itself to be perfidious; having studied much of their natures, and having made a specific attempt to represent their minds accurately, I find myself confident in my delineation; it is of particular passion and perfection in me; as perhaps I would have known them myself, given opportunity. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 2

Indeed, I find Skybreaker disagreements remarkable; I have preference for each account, seeing as the arguments of the great arguers are of the most engaging variety, as to leave a woman disposed to both one side or the other, at a variety of times, vacillating back and forth, first the first, then second the second, to accede victory to whichever last has spoken. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 2

It is to this end that I have identified and made particular note of three distinct factions of Skybreakers, even during Nale’Elin’s days of direct leadership, and this is to be found in my third coda. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 2

“Too many people,” Adolin said as his armorers began to put on his Plate, “think the oath, and not what it means, is the important part. I heard something in one of my lessons once, from an ardent. About a man who took an oath to sit in a chair until told he could stand—and he stayed there for ten years.” “Wow,” Yanagawn said. “That’s impressive.” “It’s idiocy,” Adolin said. “Pardon, Yanagawn—everyone celebrated him, but it’s pure idiocy. You know what I’d admire? A man who gave an oath, then realized it was storming stupid and broke it—apologized—and moved on with his life, determined not to make that kind of mistake again.”

I wish not to engage to the reader their faults, rather to make it clear that an order so determined to care for the unwanted, the unguarded, and the disenfranchised would obviously have passionate disagreement in how to best attend to the needs of the lowly and disregarded. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 2

“When you’re living an illusion, spren-nimi, be very careful not to do anything to spoil it. Because once you do, it is exceedingly difficult to recapture your audience.”

Indeed, some insist that among Radiants, some Skybreakers did step forth into the Recreance, and their actions are covered; to this end, I have engaged the commentary of Didal; it strikes as mendacious that any Skybreaker would turn upon their oaths, and I find their malignment to be uniformly abhorrent. A schism arose among them, as all evidence presents, but not of this nature. The Skybreakers, who have always quietly cared for those the law forgets, do still exist, as previously accounted; they merely exist in multiple forms. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 3

“I don’t deserve it,” she whispered. “What was done to me is not my fault. It’s all right to accept that I have pain, but I shouldn’t accept that I deserve it.”

Dearest Cephandrius, Your rebuttal is eloquent, as always, but did you think I would be moved?

I have kept my part of the bargain, and will not be budged. I have stayed upon my land, bringing blessings to the people of Nalthis—gifting them the power of gods, as I was so long denied. I do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

I have plans to deal with Odium, as I told you before. I will not explain them to you.

I am well aware that if you were to know of my plans, you would be compelled to interfere. It is your way, is it not?

If I were to give you the fuel with which to set yourself aflame, the resulting bonfire would then become my fault and not yours. For we all know what you are.

As for Valor, our dealings are none of your business—for largely the same reasons. Can you not leave her alone?

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

You need not always have the last word, though I know you collect them like badges of honor. I will not tell you where she is.

Don’t stop moving. Don’t let them respond; only let them react. Don’t let them plan, only let them panic. Don’t let them see you as anything other than a terrible force. Make them avoid you at all costs.

All I will say is that I have kept my bargain, and I did not go in person at her request for aid.

You are the single most honorable man I have ever had the privilege of opposing.” “I wish that were true,” Nale said, watching that line of light. “But I will serve as best I can.

These days, it seems she and I are the only ones capable of maintaining any manner of isolation. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, she does not want to see you again. It has not been too long. No, I do not think it ever will be.

Be content to play with your toys on their world of storms. Or do I have to broadcast what I have learned of your goals? I certainly do not think it a coincidence that you have made a special study of the worlds where legends abound of the dead being raised.

You feign altruism. But you have another motive, do you not? Well, you always have.

if someone you deeply respected disagreed with you, perhaps it was worth reconsidering.

You now know of my sins in full. You now also know of my revelations, if they may be called that, in full. Each of my visions is here. Each experience of my past that shaped me. —From the epilogue to Oathbringer, by Dalinar Kholin

Both have as much detail as I can remember. My life. My reign. My sorrow. My glory. —From the epilogue to Oathbringer, by Dalinar Kholin