Elantris (Elantris, #1)

by Brandon Sanderson

A man is more likely to think himself a hero when he has an ally to support him.”

You will find that hate can unify people more quickly and more fervently than devotion ever could.”

“Some of us,” Sarene said. “I rather enjoyed it, personally. Fencing was my favorite sport.” The women’s eyes shone with an appalling level of bloodlust—like the eyes of hounds that had been locked in a very small room for far too long.

“Though I’ll admit, the idea of forcing one of those young puffs into my bed is tempting. I know they all think I’m too old to make them perform their duties as a wife, but they assume wrong. If I were going to let them steal my fortune, I’d at least make them work for it.” Shuden blushed at the comment, but Sarene only laughed. “I knew it. You really are nothing but a dirty old man.”

“Because the water is pulled downwards, just like everything else. The ice melts in the mountains, and it has to have a place to go.” “Correct,” Galladon said. “Now, a different question. What makes the water want to flow?” “I wasn’t aware that it needed to want to.”

It could not continue. Hrathen’s world was one of control and predictability, his religion a logical exercise. Dilaf was like a boiling pot of water poured on Hrathen’s ice. In the end, they would both just end up weakened and dissipated, like puffs of steam in the wind. And after they were gone, Arelon would die.

“The oppression of the few brings salvation to the many?”

Ahan sighed, rising and waddling out into the sunlight.

“Oh dear,” Ashe mumbled. “My lady, don’t you think you might be overextending yourself? You’ve decided to confront the gyorn, liberate the court women from masculine oppression, save Arelon’s economy, and feed Elantris. Perhaps you should just let this man’s subterfuge go unexplored.”

“Definitely not—you optimists just can’t understand that a depressed person doesn’t want you to try and cheer them up. It makes us sick.”

“Handsome and pretty are two completely different things, Cousin. Half the women who see that man will love him, the other half will just be jealous.”

Power was not in wealth, but in control—money was worthless before a man who refused to be bought.