Tress of the Emerald Sea

by Brandon Sanderson

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

(Worry, it might be said, is the carrion feeder of emotions.

It might seem that the person who can feel for others is doomed in life. Isn’t one person’s pain enough?

I’ve found that the people who are the happiest are the ones who learn best how to feel.

Empathy is an emotional loss leader. It pays for itself eventually.

people ignore the existential horror that comes from knowing their body is slowly deteriorating every day, time itself marching them toward oblivion to the cadence of their beating hearts.

while we can often choose our actions, we rarely get to choose our consequences.

Worry has weight, and is an infinitely renewable resource. One might say worries are the only things you can make heavier simply by thinking about them.

Memory is often our only connection to who we used to be. Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves.

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