Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

If you could explain something perfectly, then you’d never need art. That was the difference between a table and a beautiful woodcutting. You could explain the table: its purpose, its shape, its nature. The woodcutting you simply had to experience.

“Shallan!” he said, aghast. “If you were talking to someone else, they wouldn’t be me.” “I happen to know plenty of people who aren’t you, Wit. I even like some of them.” “Be careful. People who aren’t me are prone to spontaneous bouts of sincerity.” “Which is bad?” “Of course! ‘Sincerity’ is a word people use to justify their chronic dullness.” “Well, I like sincere people,” Shallan said, raising her cup. “It’s delightful how surprised they look when you push them down the stairs.” “Now, that’s unkind. You shouldn’t push people down the stairs for being sincere. You push people down the stairs for being stupid.” “What if they’re sincere and stupid?” “Then you run.”

“Like a fashionable dress, it can be fetching in youth, but looks particularly bad on the aged. And unique though its properties may be, stupidity is frighteningly common. The sum total of stupid people is somewhere around the population of the planet. Plus one.” “Plus one?” Shallan asked. “Sadeas counts twice.”

“Yes, yes. I’m so storming clever that half the time, even I can’t follow what I’m talking about.”

This is life. The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone. Trust me, I’ve practiced.”

“Funny, isn’t it, how so many of our stories start the same way, but have opposing endings? In half, the child ignores her parents, wanders out into the woods, and gets eaten. In the other half she discovers great wonders. There aren’t many stories about the kids who say, ‘Yes, I shall not go into the forest. I’m glad my parents explained that is where the monsters live.’ ”

Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it.”

They looked out at the street and found Kaladin approaching along with what seemed to be an army of five or six hundred men, wearing the uniforms of the Wall Guard. Adolin sighed softly. “Of course. He’s probably their leader now or something. Storming bridgeboy.”

“You should go talk to her,” Syl said, sitting next to him. “About wasting Stormlight?” Kaladin said. “Yes, perhaps I should. She does seem inclined to be frivolous with who she expends it for.” Syl rolled her eyes. “What?” “Don’t go lecture her, silly. Chat with her. About life. About fun things.” Syl nudged him with her foot. “I know you want to. I can feel that you do. Be glad I’m the wrong kind of spren, or I would probably be licking your forehead or something to get at your emotions.”

But she had learned that nobody was strong all the time, not even Dalinar Kholin. Love wasn’t about being right or wrong, but about standing up and helping when your partner’s back was bowed. He would likely do the same for her someday.

“We certainly are an odd bunch.” “Yes. Seven people. Odd.”

The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar.

“If I pretend … If I pretend I didn’t do those things, it means that I can’t have grown to become someone else.”

“Journey before destination,” Dalinar said. “It cannot be a journey if it doesn’t have a beginning.”

“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”

Life breaks us, Teft. Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”

The most important words a man can say are, “I will do better.” These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say. The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says “journey before destination.” Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us. But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination. To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one. I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist. I needed to write it anyway.

Art is about emotion, examination, and going places people have never gone before to discover and investigate new things. The only way to create something that nobody hates is to ensure that it can’t be loved either. Remove enough spice from soup, and you’ll just end up with water.”