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.

Well, parents have to say things like that. They’re required to see the best in their children, otherwise living with the little sociopaths would drive a person mad.

It might seem that the person who can feel for others is doomed in life. Isn’t one person’s pain enough? Why must a person like Tress feel for two, or more? Yet I’ve found that the people who are the happiest are the ones who learn best how to feel. It takes practice, you know. Effort. And those who (late in life) have been feeling for two, three, or a thousand different people…well, turns out they’ve had a leg up on everyone else all along. Empathy is an emotional loss leader. It pays for itself eventually.

That “wizard” from the stars wasn’t me, by the way. I’ve always wondered who traded the device to Fort. That’s Nalthian tech, with Awakened predictive Connection circuits.

If you wish to become a storyteller, here is a hint: sell your labor, but not your mind. Give me ten hours a day scrubbing a deck, and oh the stories I could imagine. Give me ten hours adding sums, and all you’ll have me imagining at the end is a warm bed and a thought-free evening.

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.

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

That is probably the craziest, most reckless thing I’ve ever heard someone say—and I was literally part of a secret plot to kill God.

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

Oh yes. I’ve said those words. I said them with sixteen other people, in fact.