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The Way of Kings
‘Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.’
“I feel each of the things you mention, Sadeas,” Dalinar said, eyes forward. “But I don’t always let them out. A man’s emotions are what define him, and control is the hallmark of true strength. To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.”
"But expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack."
"Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness."
"Sometimes we find it hardest to accept in others that which we cling to in ourselves."
"Beards were like axehound pups. Boys dreamed of the day they’d get one, never realizing how annoying they could be."
"Much like the aforementioned knife to the back, a clever gibe is most effective when it is unanticipated."
"Each man has his place. Mine is to make insults. Yours is to be in-sluts.” - Wit roasting Sadeas!!
"Kaladin was like a moldy crust on a starving man’s plate; not the first bite, but still doomed."
"To speak of what might be is forbidden,” the voice said. “To speak of what was depends on perspective."
"what is the point? We fight to get Shardblades, then use those Shardblades to fight to get more Shardblades. It’s a circle, round and round we go, chasing our tails so we can be better at chasing our tails."
“‘Candle flames,’” Litima continued. The selection was from The Way of Kings, read from the very copy that Gavilar had once owned. “‘A dozen candles burned themselves to death on the shelf before me. Each of my breaths made them tremble. To them, I was a behemoth, to frighten and destroy. And yet, if I strayed too close, they could destroy me. My invisible breath, the pulses of life that flowed in and out, could end them freely, while my fingers could not do the same without being repaid in pain.’”
“‘I understood in a moment of stillness,’” Litima read. “‘Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees.'"
'I believe that my own morality—which answers only to my heart—is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution."
"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.
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