The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)

by Brandon Sanderson

Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness.

Jasnah was also a rationalist, a woman with the audacity to deny the existence of the Almighty himself based on her own reasoning.

The hallmark of insecurity is bravado.

Though many hated their lives, they still clung to them with white-knuckled fervor.

But you’ll always find people telling stories about supposedly better days. You watch. A man joins a new team of soldiers, and the first thing he’ll do is talk about how wonderful his old team was.

It’s a circle, round and round we go, chasing our tails so we can be better at chasing our tails.”

“The things that others have always seem better than what you have,” his mother said.

And if I spend all of my energy worrying about what they might do, I won’t be able to solve the problems we’re facing right now.”