Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.

She had the stubbornness of a chull, and while she was cocky, that confidence was a power of its own. She got what she wanted and wasn’t embarrassed by success.

“But sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.”

You decide how you are defined. Don’t surrender that to them. They will gleefully take the chance to define you, if you allow it.”

Look close at a given person, and you’d see their uniqueness—see that they didn’t quite match whatever broad category you’d first put them in.

“Well, you have a chance, Lyn. A chance nobody has had for ages, a chance in millions. Either you seize it, and in so doing decide you’re worthy, or you leave and give up.” He pressed the gemstone back down into her hand. “But if you leave, you don’t get to complain. As long as you keep trying, there’s a chance. When you give up? That’s when the dream dies.”

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.”

“Do you wish,” Wit asked, “that you could go back to not being able to see?” “No,” she whispered. “Then live. And let your failures be part of you.”

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

Love wasn’t about being right or wrong, but about standing up and helping when your partner’s back was bowed.

It was simply the way of human beings, subtly changing the past in their minds to match their current beliefs.

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.

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

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.