Tress of the Emerald Sea

by Brandon Sanderson

She felt less like a mere human being, and more like a human who was merely being.

is. But a terrible idea executed brilliantly has to be better than a brilliant idea executed terribly.

One of the great tragedies of life is knowing how many people in the world are made to soar, paint, sing, or steer—except they never get the chance to find out.

Whenever one does discover a moment of joy, beauty enters the world. Human beings, we can’t create energy; we can only harness it. We can’t create matter; we can only shape it. We can’t even create life; we can only nurture it. But we can create light. This is one of the ways. The effervescence of purpose discovered.

The vast majority of swords have two edges, and I’ve not found them to be any more likely to cut their owner than the single-edged variety.

It is the sharpness of the wielder, and not the sharpness of the sword, that foreshadows mishap.

But the person who is willing to reconsider their assumptions? The hero who can sit down and reevaluate their life? Well, now that is a gemstone that truly glitters,

You can’t taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become.

But evolution is not a precise mechanism, and it has resulted in a certain number of people in the population with more nerve than neurons.

The truth was, she’d simply never encountered a topic interesting enough—or dangerous enough—to engage her.

While a healthy measure of foolhardiness drove our ancestors toward discovery, fear kept them alive. If bravery is the wind that makes us soar like kites, fear is the string that keeps us from going too far. We need it, but the thing is, our heritage taught us to fear some of the wrong things.

Enjoy memories, yes, but don’t be a slave to who you wish you once had been. Those memories aren’t alive. You are.

“Somehow I seem to be best at lying when I tell the truth.”

A boring truth will always have difficulty competing with an exciting lie.

Because we adapt, we sometimes don’t recognize how twisted, uncomfortable, or downright wrong the container is that we’ve been told to inhabit.

In the land where everyone screams, everyone is also slightly deaf.