Shadows of Self (Mistborn, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

He’d always found it odd that so many died when they were old, as logic said that was the point in their lives when they’d had the most practice not dying.

“Greet every morning with a smile. That way it won’t know what you’re planning to do to it?”

“Until you know it ain’t true, treat every woman like she has an older brother what is stronger than you are?”

“I ain’t drunk,” Wayne said, sniffling. “I’m investigatin’ alternative states of sobriety.

You had to adapt. Move. Change. That was good, but it could also threaten identity, connection, and sense of purpose. The governor’s guards studied the crowd with hostility, muttering about miscreants, as if seeing the crowd as barely contained malefactors who were looking for any excuse to riot and loot. To the contrary, these people wanted something stable, something that would let them sustain their communities or forge new ones. Rioting was rarely caused by greed, but frequently by frustration and hopelessness.

But for that brief moment he seemed less an ally and more a storm that you had to prepare for and clean up after.