Ryan > Ryan's Quotes

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“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.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“But the First Ideal was the same for each of the ten: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,” Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, “but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“There are no foolish oaths. All are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren. The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“But sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“You decide how you are defined. Don’t surrender that to them. They will gleefully take the chance to define you, if you allow it.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone. Trust me, I’ve practiced.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Sometimes, a hypocrite is nothing more than a man who is in the process of changing.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Journey before destination,” Dalinar said. “It cannot be a journey if it doesn’t have a beginning.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Ten spears go to battle,” he whispered, “and nine shatter. Did that war forge the one that remained? No, Amaram. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Nalathis. Scadarial. Tal Dain.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

“Syl used to think human children came out through the nose in a particularly violent sneeze,”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

“That said, the most worrying thing I discovered in this was the wound upon the Spiritual Realm where Ambition, Mercy, and Odium clashed—and Ambition was destroyed. The effects on the planet Threnody have been … disturbing.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

“Elithanathile,” Navani said, whispering the tenth name of the Almighty.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

“he reached down and picked up the mating plume she had dropped. “This,” he said with a harsh whisper, holding it up before her, “is the symbol of your ignorance. On the Pantheon Islands, nothing is easy, nothing is simple. That plume was placed by another trapper to catch someone who does not deserve to be here,”
― Brandon Sanderson, Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” What do you despise?”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“We called them false angels. You came to me asking how my faith survived the Day of Judgement. I will tell you a secret. When the stars fell, when the seas boiled and the earth burned, my faith didn’t die. That is when I began to believe. God was real, and he hated us.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“Down their lengths, the prisoners struggle in bonds they do not truly perceive. Fate shackles them. By power of eight and will of four, they are caught in the design. It pulls them towards me. I take up the web. I gather it in. The prey rushes forwards, blind in the arrogance of false hope. They are three, coming to be ground and torn by jaws of eight and edict of four. They believe in the illusion of choice, in the ragged dream of their struggle. The disciple of reason, the holder of secrets, and the winged nobility, they are infused with fire. It will burn them. I will burn them. They are no more than ash. But by knives of eight, for the glory of four, of the three there is the one whose pyre must be the galaxy. I pull the web, and shape his fate. The riven must stand before the undivided. He will embrace the majesty of ruin.”
― David Annandale, Ruinstorm

“The first wall of any fortress was the mind, and doubt could burn it from within before the enemy had even raised a blade.”
― John French, The Solar War

“It’s plainly becoming quite an imperative. Survival, as I found out a long time ago, triggers the most basic, fundamental responses in an organic form. An individual, a species… It will do almost anything, evolve in almost any way it can, in order to stay alive. I called it the Existential Maturation Trigger.”
― Dan Abnett, Saturnine

“so we lose that part that a child and an old man and a father looking into his child’s eyes knows – that the next step is not a promise. That to live is to fight. We forget that. We forget that life is weakness in the face of eternity. To take the next step only matters if you must fight for it, for the last fraction of ourselves. And taking it you see yourself, true and clear – not a warrior, not a hero, not a story of glory and wonder… Just a lightning flash, a descent from Heaven to Earth, a step taken, bright and fleeting and then gone.”
― John French, Mortis

“It was as simple as mortal indecision. He didn’t know. Every course ended in disaster. And he couldn’t even pretend that he didn’t care, because he did. God of Decay, no father ever cared more.’ At that, Morarg suddenly remembered what Mortarion had told him. I loved you all too much. That is the only error I will admit.”
― Chris Wraight, Warhawk

“If you are the last man standing, you’re not fighting hard enough.”
― Dan Abnett, The Saint

“To say that the two assassins were dead was as much of an understatement as saying that a supernova is the end of a star’s life. It conveyed nothing of the catastrophic violence involved.”
― Dan Abnett, The Lost

“Explain to me what it is,’ Gaunt said to Landerson bluntly. Landerson shrugged. ‘I can’t… I mean, I’m no magister, no sorcerer. I don’t understand the workings of Chaos.’ ‘Try!’ Gaunt snapped. ‘It’s an expression of the warp,’ Plower said. ‘That’s what I was told. The Archenemy has branded our world in every way, even the atmosphere. A glyf is the way Chaos makes its mark on the very air. A glyf is a thought, a concept, an idea… an utterance of the Ruinous Powers somehow conjured into solid form. Some say they’re sentient. I don’t believe that. Glyfs are Chaos runes, sigils, symbols, whatever you want to call them. The ordinals summon them into being and release them to watch over the populace. They drift, they patrol, they lurk…’ ‘Great,’ cut in Curth sourly. ‘But what do they do?’ Plower looked at her. ‘I suppose you could describe them as tripwires. Sensors. Alarms. They react to human activity. I’ve no idea how. Certainly, they respond to imagos. If they detect anything unconsented, they… they react. They summon.”
― Dan Abnett, The Lost

“the martial art of the long-vanished Tanith wood-warriors, the Nalsheen. In the old days, it was said, the Nalsheen had banded together in the oblique forests of Tanith and, armed only with fighting staves tipped with silver knives, had overthrown the corrupt Huhlhwch Dynasty, ushering in the age of modern, free Tanith.”
― Dan Abnett, The Lost