More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
March 16 - April 22, 2023
Afire with holy energy, Szeth turned to the guards. They could see that he was leaking Stormlight, wisps of it curling from his skin like luminescent smoke. The lead guard squinted, frowning. Szeth was sure the man had never seen anything like it before.
But expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.
Sometimes we find it hardest to accept in others that which we cling to in ourselves.
The hallmark of insecurity is bravado.
“I don’t know what I am either. A bridgeman? A surgeon? A soldier? A slave? Those are all just labels. Inside, I’m me. A very different me than I was a year ago, but I can’t worry about that, so I just keep moving and hope my feet take me where I need to go.”
“He was with the king and heard the soldiers crying that a Shardbearer was attacking. The decoy idea was Sadeas’s plan—he put on one of Gavilar’s robes and fled in Gavilar’s place. It was suicide, what he did. Wearing no Plate, making a Shardbearer assassin chase him. I honestly think it was one of the bravest things I’ve ever known a man to do.”
“People are discord,” Syl said. “What does that mean?” “You all act differently and think differently. Nothing else is like that—animals act alike, and all spren are, in a sense, virtually the same individual. There’s harmony in that. But not in you—it seems that no two of you can agree on anything. All the world does as it is supposed to, except for humans. Maybe that’s why you so often want to kill each other.”
The stormwall hung like a curtain in the air, speeding toward the camp. The massive sheet of rain was a silvery grey, the clouds above onyx black, lit from within by occasional flashes of lightning.
“What’s your real name, then?” Teft asked. “You won’t be able to say it.” Teft raised an eyebrow. “Numuhukumakiaki’aialunamor,” Rock said. Teft hesitated, then smiled. “Well, I guess in that case, Rock will do just fine.”
A man’s emotions are what define him, and control is the hallmark of true strength. To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.”
The book spoke of a king carrying the burdens of his people. It said that those who led were the lowest of men, for they were required to serve everyone.
“Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can—what we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.”
“You were only picking one,” the man said. “That means one man gets to be special, the others don’t. I’ve got a good feeling about you. It’s in your eyes, gancho.” He paused. “What’s a bridge crew?” Kaladin found himself smiling at the man’s nonchalant attitude. “You’ll see.
Jasnah ignored the calls of rickshaw pullers and palanquin porters. She walked slowly in a beautiful dress of violet and gold, Shallan following in blue silk. Jasnah hadn’t taken time to have her hair done following her bath, and she wore it loose, cascading across her shoulders, almost scandalous in its freedom.
Things were the same, yet different. One step, and the world flipped upside down. The villain became the hero, the hero the villain.
Where to run when you were going mad?
‘And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived. “ ‘In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method.
At times, it seems to me that to be human is to want that which we cannot have.
