Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)

by Brandon Sanderson

Progress was taking nature and putting a box around it.

The Rider of Storms was a traitor, yes—but you could not have a traitor who had not originally been a friend.

They ignore the greater assumption—that a “place” for women must be defined and set forth to begin with. Half of the population must somehow be reduced to the role arrived at by a single conversation. No matter how broad that role is, it will be—by nature—a reduction from the infinite variety that is womanhood. I say that there is no role for women—there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself. For some, it will be the role of scholar; for others, it will be the role of wife. For others, it will be both. For yet others, it will be neither.

A woman’s strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role. It is amazing to me that I even have to make this point, as I see it as the very foundation of our conversation.

“‘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.’”

“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.”

They might not be the ones who take it from you, Kaladin thought. You might be doing it to yourself, better than any lighteyes could.

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