“
The only problem with seeing people you know is that they know you.
”
”
Brent Runyon (The Burn Journals: A Memoir)
“
Strength is a choice, courage is a habit: Andross Guile
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
So what does that make you think about God?
I think that maybe, if human beings have souls, that maybe their souls are in their eyes. That maybe that's what the color is. Their souls.
”
”
Brent Runyon (The Burn Journals: A Memoir)
“
Before everything, I used to do this thing when I was upset-I used to take all my feelings and push them down inside me. It was like they were garbage and I was compacting it to get more in. I felt like I could keep pushing all my feelings down into my socks and I wouldn't have to worry about them. I don't think I do that anymore.
”
”
Brent Runyon (The Burn Journals: A Memoir)
“
I was surprised that every single person I talked to had a story about how depression had affected their lives. Carmelita Gamboa, a teenager in Michigan, later wrote to me, "The sad thing is, after a while, it starts to feel like home". It does, doesn't it?
”
”
Brent Runyon (The Burn Journals: A Memoir)
“
Don’t judge a man by what he says his ideals are, judge him by what he does. Look at what the Color Prince has done. They’re wrong, Teia. They’re liars and murderers. It doesn’t mean everything we do is right. It doesn’t mean our house doesn’t need a thorough cleaning. I just don’t think we need to burn it to the ground to do it.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
“
If you’re trapped in the darkness all alone, how do you know you’re alone and not actually surrounded by an army of friends, also silent, also afraid in the dark, merely waiting for the sound of one voice to rouse them from fear, to fight for freedom?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
But given time, horror fades, and repetition makes what was unthinkable now normal; the monstrous is made manageable. For mankind adapts to every horror.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Some say, ‘Who you are is what you do.’ They’re wrong, but not all wrong. What you do forms who you are. Then who you are forms what you do. It’s a vicious cycle, or a virtuous one, depending. One act doesn’t undo all of who you are, but a thousand acts make you who you are. So it’s simple, though not easy: stop creating the wrong you.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
He says everything like it happened to someone else.
”
”
Brent Runyon (The Burn Journals: A Memoir)
“
Do you want to know one of the deepest horrors of life? None of us is needed, not truly. It’s just nicer for those who love us if we’re there.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
That was the trouble of a consistency in moral affairs: holding yourself up to the measure you judge others by is three clicks past irritating.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
What do you call it when you realize you've been an asshole your whole life?" Gavin asked.
"A good start?" Orholam offered.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Every time I open my mouth to say what I'm feeling, something stops me and I have to make sure I'm not going to say anything stupid. It makes me crazy. And then, once I've figured out what I'm going to say, I have to go over it, over and over again, just to see if what I'm feeling is right. And then I have to figure out how to say it.
”
”
Brent Runyon (The Burn Journals: A Memoir)
“
Sinking into sarcasm is the heart’s last rebellion against a mind choosing helplessness.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
One can revere what one wishes to emulate. One can’t revere what one wishes to replace.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
a commander should use his quiet hours to obsess over two questions only: what does the enemy know, and what are the enemy’s problems?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
We keep secret what we fear makes us weak, not realizing in our fear that it is the keeping of secrets itself that weakens us.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Denying reality only works as long as enough powerful people see a benefit in playing along.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Kip had tasted honey that few in the history of the world had tasted: he’d had meaningful work, and friendship with titans; a great marriage to a strong, good, beautiful woman; and a father who’d been willing to die for him.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
We know ourselves by how we see ourselves mirrored in others’ eyes. So when a man lies habitually, he distorts the mirror he holds up to the world. In fooling others, he loses himself. Those who praise him? Those who love him? He knows they must simply be fools. He hates himself because there’s a gap between what he is and what he believes himself to be. If the gap grows too large, it becomes a tear, a schism. A man torn asunder lives in madness. So, my friend, do you know who you are?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Silence is isolation chosen. Silence is darkness, and every evil loves the dark.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
A man who’ll never risk being seen as an asshole is a man who doesn’t believe in anything.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Time makes a coward’s decisions for her.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Gunner? Captain? Let’s go find God. I’ll bring the sword, just in case He’s a dick.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
A man can’t fall in love at first sight with a woman; he falls in love with what he imagines she is. She is the canvas onto which he casts his hopes and dreams.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
In the face of life’s black mysteries, answers feel barren. All I know is that I can only choose my attitude. The mysteries aren’t thereby untangled, but when I choose gratitude, I see life flower.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Fuck the old way. Fuck the new way. As he had always been, he himself would be the third way. He would be himself, and he would be terrible.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Why does everyone else always guess round numbers? They’re not any more likely.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Remember to see yourself as you are in the eyes of those who love you.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Blubber can take punishment. Fat kids are tougher than anyone knows, especially themselves.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Maybe . . . rule as if it’s a gift, and not something you’re owed?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
When your answers lead you logically to despair, you don't have the wrong answers; you have the right answers--to the wrong questions.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
I think that maybe, if human beings have souls, that maybe their souls are in their eyes. That maybe that’s what the color is. Their souls."
"Well, they say the eyes are the windows to the soul."
"No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, the actual color is kind of like your spirit, like your soul. And the black space, maybe the black space is the tunnel that people talk about when they die. Do you know what I mean? Like when you die, you go into the eyes of the person you’re looking at and walk through their eyes and, at the other end, that’s where heaven is.
”
”
Brent Runyon (The Burn Journals: A Memoir)
“
If you’re trapped in the darkness all alone, how do you know you’re alone and not actually surrounded by an army of friends, also silent, also afraid in the dark, merely waiting for the sound of one voice to rouse them from fear, to fight for freedom? Silence is isolation chosen. Silence is darkness, and every evil loves the dark.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Triumphant, with a cloak of fire and a crown of blood, Dazen the Black would return. He would bring down heaven and he would raze hell.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
But Kip knew all about the slimy, steep-sided pit of self-pity. Sometimes, a hard kick in the ass can do what a soft word in the ear can’t.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
She didn’t seek her heart’s desire instead of doing her duty; she made it her heart’s desire to seek her duty.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Strangely, that lack of fear of failure made failures infrequent
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
It’s what evil does: it promises an easy way out of one problem at the cost of causing worse ones.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Strength is a choice. Courage is a habit. Unfortunately, cowardice is, too.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Someone’s gonna do evil, might as well be me. And if everyone in the world said that, what kind of world would it be?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
When your answer lead you logically to despair, you don't have the wrong answers; you have the right answers--to the wrong questions
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Of all the things that die, hope is the most easily resurrected.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
In this life, we are not garments which may be washed and worn again, Karris. We are candles, giving light and heat until we are consumed. You burned more brightly than most. It has a cost. Mediocrities like me? Dim flames burn longer.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Broken Eye (Lightbringer, #3))
“
some members burned out so completely that they were never able to work in the high-tech industry again.
”
”
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
“
Just need a dragon now.” He paused. “On second thought, no dragons. I think we’re fine without dragons.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
It was there, and he knew it was there, knew it was more real than what his eyes could presently see.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Where other nations pile coin and stare greedily at what others hold, we long for the treasure of time and spend it as others spend gold.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Confusing the image of a thing with the thing itself is the root of all sorts of trouble.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
People, Liv thought. So strange.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
&To my stubborn readers, who deserve to be rewarded.* *I said “deserve to be.” Not “will be.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Take one deep breath through that poo pincher disfiguring your gob for a moment, won’tcha?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
and a man must fear he’ll lose his integrity in a world like this or he’ll never keep it.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Lead-soled? You’re the one with heavy feet, you laggard son of a slattern mum—” “Don’t you talk about our mum that way. If she’d been faithful to dad, you’d not be here.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
War is the wily orator who gets us cheering horrors.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Sometimes the wicked win a battle. Sometimes those who hear the call say no to it. Men have power. Our actions matter, even unto eternity.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Dying makes me grumpy, sir.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
She’d hated him for his weakness, but the young find it too easy to hate the weak.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
If an institution requires the monstrous in order to operate—requires, not commits incidentally, requires in an essential way—is it not therefore itself fundamentally monstrous?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
You can judge a faith by the fruit it bears.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
We who gamble in taking up arms with the intent to kill know that our own lives are our ante,
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
How do you move too fast for fear to follow when you can’t move at all?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Big Leo, do you want to know what I like about you?” The big man pondered, eyes still locked on Kip. Then, just as Kip was about to tell him, Big Leo said, “No.” He walked away.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
When your answers lead you logically to despair, you don’t have the wrong answers; you have the right answers—to the wrong questions.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
So when a man lies habitually, he distorts the mirror he holds up to the world. In fooling others, he loses himself. Those who praise him? Those who love him? He knows they must simply be fools. He hates himself because there’s a gap between what he is and what he believes himself to be. If the gap grows too large, it becomes a tear, a schism. A man torn asunder lives in madness.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
If an institution presents itself as uniquely moral but is secretly monstrous, isn’t that proof that its very ideas are corrupt and corrupting, rather than that only some few of its practitioners are corrupt?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Climbing out will be tougher than it would be to tell yourself what a noble martyr you are and live half a life, cuddled up with your misery. But you’re making a choice, like it or not. This isn’t happening to you.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Mosquitoes are proof that God hates us and wants us to be miserable.” “I always thought of them as a strong hint to go inside and be with friends beside the fire, and be done with the day’s labors.” “You’re kind of a look-on-the-bright-side guy, aren’t you?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
This is how life gets cheap. Someone teaches you how easy it is to kill. Someone gives you permission. The next moment it simply seems like the thing to do. You’re stopping an unwanted flow of information, not sending immortal souls to their maker for judgment.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
And here’s thing,” Gunner said. “I kin understand it when a man throws back a few too many drinks on a lonesome night, gets sour inside, and sucks at the teat of a musket for jus’ long enough so that big ole ‘fuck you’ we scream at the world bounces back as ‘fuck me’ and he pulls the trigger. I kin understand when a girl climbs a tree and tries on a noose necklace for size and once she got it on thinkin’, ‘I come this far, why not?’ and takin’ that hop. Prob’ly e’ryone who looks oft a cliff thinks a taking the sharp drop with a sudden stop. E’ery sailor has thought of takin’ that swim what fattens sharks. We all got the black moment when the evil eye of the barrel dares a starin’ contest. And we’re all a hair trigger’s pull from the musket’s dare. It’s the devil’s gift, ain’t it? It’s the heritage o’ man, aye?
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
There’ll be another battle next month or next year, but we did what we had to, and we did it as well as we could,’ the first said. “ ‘There’ll be another battle next month or next year, so we didn’t really accomplish anything,’ the second replied. “Which one’s right, Cruxer?” Kip asked.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
The cosmetics, the clothes, the hair, the shaved and lotioned skin, the anointing oils, the posture, the dazzling bright colors and pleasing patterns: these were all the lampshades we settle over our light hoping to cast a hue and color others will find acceptable. We hope we’ll find it acceptable, too.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Although it is easy to imagine happiness as the upwards turn on this haphazard rising and falling of emotion which is life, but really it is a foundation of strength of character and inner balance that precipitates peace, a foundation that is slowly built or slowly chipped away.
There are times when it may seem that the foundation of happiness is broken, but as the dust settles and the debris is cleared away, we find that the storm has only covered it, still leaving everything we have built in place.
True happiness is forged in the furnace of perseverance, fortitude, hope and love. It is not burned or broken by the heat, rather it is made unbreakable—it becomes eternal. Life is the fuel for this purifying fire.
”
”
Michael Brent Jones (Dinner Party: Part 2)
“
Reptiles stand at the antipodes from this. They care nothing for what their sisters love or their fathers hate. They seek out company only when it’s time to mate. There are some few men and women like this, of course, the broken ones, those born soulless, who possess neither empathy nor plans, nor can even be taught to feel much beyond their immediate fear, hunger, or lust. But most of us aren’t like that at all.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
The cosmetics, the clothes, the hair, the shaved and lotioned skin, the anointing oils, the posture, the dazzling bright colors and pleasing patterns: these were all the lampshades we settle over our light hoping to cast a hue and color others will find acceptable. We hope we'll find it acceptable, too.
But others don't even see that color, for they view us through their own lenses, filtering our already-filtered light in ways we can only guess. Nor do we see ourselves true, for we wear our own lenses, and sometimes the eye itself is dark, and how great the darkness!
Kip had been so certain for so long that there was nothing he could do to make himself acceptable that he'd hidden his light altogether. The mirror had been an enemy who, overwhelming in his might, had simply needed to be avoided. But the mirror is ever a liar: when you yourself cut out half the light by which you see, how can the mirror be anything but?
'Let me see my skin, but with no pink tones.'...'Oh, how awfully pale and ugly I am.'
We see others not as they are but as we see. We see ourselves not as we are but as we see-and as we are seen, for we each cast our light on each other, too. Surrounded by those who cast only brutal light, we see some truth, and sometimes necessary truth, but a lie if we think it all the truth.
Kip had been shedding filters and lampshades for the last few years now. Being stripped of drafting was different, though. It not only changed his sight, but it changed the very light he cast into the world. It certainly was changing how people saw him.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
But he couldn’t kill her, and he knew it. He’d let the world burn down first.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer, #2))
“
When I first arrived, Lord Dariush told me he is a casual student of languages, and he loved that my name hearkens back to a rare dialect of Old Parian. In the full week since then, I’ve deduced that by ‘casual’ he means he’s fluent in six dead tongues, and has done his own translations of several ancient masterpieces. He derides his own efforts as derivative, an idle pastime not worth the parchment he scrawls them on: ‘Still, it keeps me out of trouble. Some hunt fowls, I hunt vowels.’ He’d laughed. I’d chuckled along dutifully.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
In the face of life’s black mysteries, answers feel barren. All I know is that I can only choose my attitude.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
She waited, then understood. “So you’re not going to tell me.” “Not when you’re hurting and angry. You’ll reject the answer, and then later you’ll think of it as an answer you already found lacking and perhaps you’ll neglect to consider it again. Having found a door’s handle bristling with needles, you’ll tell yourself it’s probably locked anyway. When you come to the big questions, before you can get a true answer, you need to know whether you’re approaching them rationally or emotionally.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
A woman’s like a cannon herself. Keep her well lubricated, and she’ll not just stand hard use but Every gift must be received and released with the appropriate measure. Even the gift of life leads to death, Kip.
Tisis
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (3 of 5) [Dramatized Adaptation])
“
Every gift must be received and released with the appropriate measure. Even the gift of life leads to death, Kip.”
~Tisis
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (3 of 5) [Dramatized Adaptation])
“
A woman’s like a cannon herself. Keep her well lubricated, and she’ll not just stand hard use but shine with it. But you cain’t just empty your powder horn in her, then drop her back on the rack to rust!
~Gunner
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (3 of 5) [Dramatized Adaptation])
“
And that burning need to destroy every bad thing I see, every bad person, every time someone wrongs someone who doesn’t deserve it? I’m learning to sit with those feelings. To feel them. To let myself be angry at the injustice in the world, but remind myself that there are other ways I can help that don’t involve abattoirs, stun guns and a selection of butcher’s knives. Whatever red beast that had been awoken in me has been gently soothed back to sleep by love. I know right, utter vomit.
”
”
Katy Brent (How to Kill Men and Get Away With It)
“
Here I am Death. Let us walk together one last time, and fight each other no more.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
They weren't children; they knew this was a special time and a fleeting one, but there was nothing cynical in that recognition, nor at all resigned to eventual stagnation: they were, simply, in the first great thaw of spring, and they were enjoying the warmth of the sun, without demanding that it never rain or snow again.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Open your eyes, take a deep breath, and return to life. Wake up and fight ~ fight for the love and the burning light.
”
”
Brent HInds
“
More often, medical trainees can be likened to frogs in slowly boiling water. We see sickness and death constantly, and if we are not careful, the doctor we had hoped to become will burn out. Out of necessity we create shells that protect and isolate us; sometimes it hurts too much to repeatedly feel another’s pain. We laugh at things that are not funny. We discuss people in a dehumanized, detached way.
”
”
Brent Rock Russell (Miracles and Mayhem in the ER: Unbelievable True Stories from an Emergency Room Doctor)
“
He was better at lying to others, though, than to himself. No, Gavin was lying about, seeking an idyll and finding himself merely idle.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Right now I prefer making things new to making new things.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
He studied what he'd long avoided, and there was now no detail obscured, no truth denied. Here he stood in the cold light of eternity, and by some magic greater than chromaturgy, all that was wretched and self-deprecatory and judgmental and hating fell away like a serpent's scale from his eye.
He had seen through Orholam's mask of being an old prophet, and beheld something ineffably beguiling beneath the old prophet's age spots and deep wrinkles and snaggle teeth.
And now he saw something of that same beauty in himself, an image of the divine.
Here was Dazen Guile through the eyes of charity.
And as unwilling tears flooded his eyes, he realized that —wonder of wonders!—he was glorious.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
Prophets are hard to ken, but Gunner is not,” Gunner said. That actually was not at all true.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
King’s Guard’ has a nice ring to it. Lot better than ‘Winsen, Kip Guile’s Mighty Right Hand, You Know, the Suave and Dashing One.’ ” “ ‘Right hand’?” Cruxer asked, eyebrows climbing. Winsen shrugged, helpless. “I can’t stop people from talking, Commander.” “ ‘Suave’?” Ferkudi asked.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Ben-hadad said, “Don’t say it.” “You’re the Lightbringer, the Luíseach here or whatever,” Winsen said. “He said it,” Ben-hadad said. “He just had to say it,” Big Leo said.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Finally,” Ben-hadad said. “I’m so glad Winsen will no longer have to hold back how he really feels.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Fear is a powerful motivator, though one that may fade in time.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer, #5))
“
Mosquitoes are proof that God hates us and wants us to be miserable.” “I always thought of them as a strong hint to go inside and be with friends beside the fire, and be done with the day’s labors.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))
“
What do you call it when you realize you’ve been an asshole your whole life?” Gavin asked. “A good start?” Orholam offered.
”
”
Brent Weeks (The Burning White (Lightbringer #5))