Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)

by Brandon Sanderson

Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.

“Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world’s highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing.” “Huh?” She looked to him. “‘Can beauty be taken from a man?’ the first asked the second. “‘It was taken from me,’ the second replied. ‘For I cannot remember it.’ This man was blinded in a childhood accident. ‘I pray to the God Beyond each night to restore my sight, so that I may find beauty again.’

“‘Is beauty something one must see, then?’ the first asked. “‘Of course. That is its nature. How can you appreciate a work of art without seeing it?’ “‘I can hear a work of music,’ the first said. “‘Very well, you can hear some kinds of beauty—but you cannot know full beauty without sight. You can know only a small portion of beauty.’ “‘A sculpture,’ the first said. ‘Can I not feel its curves and slopes, the touch of the chisel that transformed common rock into uncommon wonder?’ “‘I suppose,’ said the second, ‘that you can know the beauty of a sculpture.’

“‘And what of the beauty of food? Is it not a work of art when a chef crafts a masterpiece to delight the tastes?’ “‘I suppose,’ said the second, ‘that you can know the beauty of a chef’s art.’ “‘And what of the beauty of a woman,’ the first said. ‘Can I not know her beauty in the softness of her caress, the kindness of her voice, the keenness of her mind as she reads philosophy to me? Can I not know this beauty? Can I not know most kinds of beauty, even without my eyes?’ “‘Very well,’ said the second. ‘But what if your ears were removed, your hearing taken away? Your tongue take...

to you was pain? You could not know beauty then. It can be taken from a man.’” The messenger stopped, cocking his head at Shallan. “What?” she asked. “What think you? Can beauty be taken from a man? If he could not touch, taste, smell, hear, see . . . what if all he knew was pain? Has that man had beauty taken from him?” “I . . .” What did this have to do with anything? “Does the pain change day by day?” “Let us say it does,” the messenge...

The messenger smiled. “To be human is to seek beauty, Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in your way. Tell me, what is ...

It is beautiful because it could have been. It should have been. I . . .”

We suffered death, oppression, indignity. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive as I did in those final weeks.”

A woman’s strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role.

“‘As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.’”

“What you did tonight was clever,” Wit said. “You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it.”

Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.

“If I protect . . . only the people I like, it means that I don’t care about doing what is right.” If he

did that, he only cared about what was convenient for himself. That wasn’t protecting. That was selfishness.

“I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.”

puffing away. “You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,” Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his

lips, “but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”

“Expectation. That is the true soul of art. If you can give a man more than he expects, then he will laud you his entire life. If you can create an air of anticipation and feed it properly, you will succeed.

“You’ll find God in the same place you’re going to find salvation from this mess,” Wit said. “Inside the hearts of men.”