Brandon Sanderson Quotes

That was the coward’s route. Wishing for ignorance.

You're not a monster, Shallan

Funny, isn't it, how so many of our stories start the same way, but have opposing endings? In half, the child ignores her parents, wanders out into the woods, and gets eaten. In the other half she discovers great wonders. There aren't many stories about the kids who say, 'Yes, I shall not go into the forest. I'm glad my parents explained that is where the monsters live.'

I used to take the terrible things that had happened to me

An army was the sort of thing everyone wanted to have, so long as it was off doing important things elsewhere.

You make it sound like having the power to change the world is a bad thing.

These are the men…well, these are the men who actually change the world. And they terrify me. For men never see as far as they think they do.

What's the point of goals, if not to spur you to something lofty?

Be careful. People who aren't me are prone to spontaneous bouts of sincerity.

Child, when they were but babes, I had already lived dozens of lifetimes. 'Old' is a word you use for worn shoes. I'm something else entirely.

I…don't feel like I've won.…

It was gratifying to see how much one could accomplish in both politics and trade by liberally murdering the other fellow’s soldiers.

They were too theatrical—and there were too many of them—for all to be truly deranged. This was a fad. A way of dealing with unexpected events and giving some shape to lives that had been turned upside down.
That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. A group of people all trying to impress one another was always more dangerous than the lone psychopath.

Most cities lived on the very edge of civilization. Everyone talked about towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere as if they were uncivilized, but she’d found people in those places pleasant, even-tempered, and comfortable with their quieter way of life.
Not in cities. Cities balanced on the edge of sustainability, always one step from starvation. When you pressed so may people together, their cultures, ideas, and stenches rubbed off on one another. The results wasn’t civilization. It was contained chaos, pressurized, bottled up so it couldn’t escape.

Fine? All right? Now leave me alone. You’re stinking up the place with an air of contented idiocy.