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The breath of kings and slaves mingled, to be breathed by men again, over and over.
“you and I are One.” “One what?” “One being,” Ym said. He set aside that shoe and got out another. “Long ago, there was only One. One knew everything, but had experienced nothing. And so, One became many—us, people. The One, who is both male and female, did so to experience all things.” “One. You mean God?” “If you wish to say it that way,” Ym said. “But it is not completely true. I accept no god. You should accept no god.
“From very close up, the fingers on a hand might seem individual and alone. Indeed, the thumb might think it has very little in common with the pinky. But with proper perspective, it is realized that the fingers are part of something much larger. That, indeed, they are One.”
Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.”
Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.
“Truth is individual.”
“Your truth is what you see,” Pattern said, sounding confused. “What else could it be?
The only path to immortality was through conquest.
Just because you learned how to lie didn’t mean you had to let the lie rule you.
This was the mark of humankind: to take the wild, unorganized world and make something logical of it.
“I ain’t grouchy,” Teft snapped. “I just have a low threshold for stupidity.”
I find nothing more frightening than a man trying to do what he has decided is important.
“To be human is to seek beauty,
“So yes, I, Adolin Kholin—cousin to the king, heir to the Kholin princedom—have shat myself in my Shardplate. Three times,
“Honor is dead,”
Only super-rich folk built fancy doors. You needed money coming out your ears before you spent it on a door.
I say that there is no role for women—there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself.
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.’”
‘Honor’ is a word applied to the actions of men from the past who have had their lives scrubbed clean by historians.”
But if art is eternal and meaningful and independent, why does it depend so damn much upon the audience?
“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.
“Whatever else might be said, at least the world chose a nice night upon which to end. . . .”
