Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

“In my visions, I witnessed a stone monster that ripped itself free of the underlying rock.

On cover

“What,” Pattern said with a hum, “is a chaperone?” “That is someone who watches two young people when they are together, to make certain they don’t do anything inappropriate.” “Inappropriate?” Pattern said. “Such as … dividing by zero?”

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.

merely being tradition does not make something worthy,

Power was an illusion of perception.

“Why are we at war, Brother?” “This again?” Dalinar said. “Look, it’s not so complicated. Can’t you remember how it was back when we started?” “Remind me.” “Well,” Dalinar said, wagging his bent knife. “We looked at this place here, this kingdom, and we realized, ‘Hey, all these people have stuff .’ And we figured … hey, maybe we should have that stuff. So we took it.”

A failed soldier is often one that has been failed.”

“Don’t deflect your evils by pointing out the faults of others,”

At the front of the auditorium, Dalinar stood before the glowing map that Shallan and he—somehow combining their powers—could create.

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

Besides, I’m less a force of nature and more one of the raw powers of creation transformed by collective human imagination into a personification of one of their ideals.”

They were so involved in their shouting match that they didn’t even respond to the glare, though it had been one of her best.

“Your master teach you to be this judgmental?”

THE FUSED, THE SOULS OF THE DEAD FROM LONG AGO, THEY LOATHE YOU. THEY ARE NOT RATIONAL. THEY HAVE BECOME PERMEATED WITH HIS ESSENCE, THE ESSENCE OF PURE HATRED. THEY WILL SEE THIS WORLD DESTROYED IN ORDER TO DESTROY MANKIND. AND YES, THEY HAVE RETURNED.

“Was Horneater dance of victory,” Rock said from near Leyten. “Is very manly.”

As long as you keep trying, there’s a chance. When you give up? That’s when the dream dies.”

It felt good to just be told what to do.

He felt embarrassed for them—they were simply too concerned about what a person should and shouldn’t be doing. It was because they didn’t have forms to change into. If Renarin wanted to be a scholar, let him be a scholar.

“Life is changing. We will all feel alone because of this, yes? Ha! Perhaps we can feel alone together.”

“You learn more from bad art than you do from good art, as your mistakes are more important than your successes. Plus, good art usually evokes the same emotions in people—most good art is the same kind of good. But bad pieces can each be bad in their own unique way. So I’m glad we have bad art, and I’m sure the Almighty agrees.”

Be extraordinary, Captain.

It clicked. “Stormfather!” Yes? “Oh. Uh, that was a curse.…

Yours is the power of Connection, of joining men and worlds,

Your Surges are the greatest of all, though they will be impotent if you seek to wield them for mere battle.

“Your soup is cold. That is idiom for ‘You are all stupid.’

“I’m not stupid enough to get mixed up in religion again. The last seven times I tried it were all disasters. I believe there’s at least one god still worshipping me by accident.”

“Child, when they were but babes, I had already lived dozens of lifetimes. ‘Old’ is a word you use for worn shoes. I’m something else entirely.”

You shouldn’t push people down the stairs for being sincere. You push people down the stairs for being stupid.”

But it can be hard to spot, as—like body odor—you never notice your own.

honest. I can know where I’m supposed to be, Shallan, but not always what I’m supposed to do there.”

Aim for the sun. That way if you miss, at least your arrow will fall far away, and the person it kills will likely be someone you don’t know.”

There are two kinds of important men, Shallan. There are those who, when the boulder of time rolls toward them, stand up in front of it and hold out their hands. All their lives, they’ve been told how great they are. They assume the world itself will bend to their whims as their nurse did when fetching them a fresh cup of milk. “Those men end up squished. “Other men stand to the side when the boulder of time passes, but are quick to say, ‘See what I did! I made the boulder roll there. Don’t make me do it again!’

“Do you know anything about Wit?” she asked Pattern. “No,” Pattern said. “He feels like … mmm … one of us.”

he’d been feeling better. That wasn’t so uncommon a feeling for him. He felt good lots of days. Trouble was, on the bad days, that was hard to remember. At those times, for some reason, he felt like he had always been in darkness, and always would be. Why was it so hard to remember? Did he have to keep slipping back down? Why couldn’t he stay up here in the sunlight, where everyone else lived?

The real her was a bruised and sorry thing, painted up all pretty, but inside a horrid mess.

Grund’s death seemed a shadow of everything else, of her good intentions turned arrogant.

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.”

If nobody asked questions, then we would never learn anything.”

“Skip?” Wit said, aghast. “Skip part of a story?”

You are not worse for your association with the world, but it is better for its association with you.”

“Then live. And let your failures be part of you.”

“Your other minds take over,” he whispered, “because they look so much more appealing. You’ll never control them until you’re confident in returning to the one who birthed them.

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

Someone has to fall, that others may stand.”

The Herald had used a type of fabrial to heal his body before his spirit departed.

I’ll take ten unskilled men with earnest hearts over one callous idiot who thinks this is all a game.”

The highest is the Spiritual, where gods live—there, all things, times, and spaces are made into one.

You’re just looking for something to latch on to. Something to feel. Because the darkness was coming. It fed off the pain of defeat, the agony of losing men he’d tried to protect. But it could feed off anything. Life going well? The darkness would whisper that he was only setting himself up for a bigger fall. Shallan glances at Adolin? They must be whispering about him. Dalinar sends him to protect Elhokar? The highprince must want to get rid of Kaladin. He’d failed at that, regardless. When Dalinar heard that Kholinar had fallen … Get out, Kaladin thought, squeezing his eyes shut. Get out, get out, get out!

Kaladin hated himself when he got like this. When he tried to empty his mind, he drifted toward the void of darkness. But when he instead let himself think, he started remembering what had happened in Kholinar. Men he loved, killing each other. Awful, terrifying perspective.

Were these his only two options? Pain or oblivion? Fight it.