Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)

by Brandon Sanderson

No feeling sorry for yourself, she thought forcefully. You filled your quota on that months ago.

Up close, differences could chafe. But if you remembered that from far away you all looked the same . . . well, that was important too.

“I will,” Lopen promised quickly. “Look, everything turned out all right, gancho! That Talik fellow, he’s a good one. Take care of him. These Reshi have a secret you’ll find interesting, and they might tell you, if you’re nice.” “What? Why don’t you tell me?” “Can’t, gancho,” Lopen said. “They told me in confidence.” “Lopen,” Kaladin said with another of his long-suffering captain-of-the-world sighs. “You were sent specifically to do reconnaissance on this group.” “Sure, and I did. But I can’t betray their secrets. They’re my cousins, gon.” “They’re not your cousins.” “Herdaz is next to Reshi. So we’re cousins.” “Alethkar is next to Herdaz too,” Kaladin said. “So I’m as much your cousin as those people are.”

“A compromise with morality,” Nikli said. “An imperfect solution for an imperfect world,”

“Words are like foods,” Lopen said, settling down on the rocks nearby. “You’ve gotta taste them all. And foods change over time, you know. How they taste. What they mean.” “People change,” Rushu said. “Your tastes change. Not the food.” “Nah, it’s the food,” Lopen said. “Because I’m still me, you see. I’ve always been me. That’s the only thing I can really know—that I’m me. And so if the flavor of something changes, then the only thing I can say for sure is it tastes different, you know? So it changed.”

“Don’t let people tell you that style is limited, pretending it will run out like Stormlight. Style is the best resource in the world, because we can make as much of it as we want—and there’s plenty, sure, for everybody.”

“I was wrong about this monster resembling the women you court. It actually looks like you in the mornings, before you’ve had your ornachala!”