Quotes from Brandon Sanderson

What was keeping this ship together? Spit and prayers?

It's a common mistake to assume that someone is weak because they are accommodating. If you think this, you might be the type who has no idea how much effort—how much strength—it takes to put up with your nonsense.

What I need to do," Wayne said, "is get the whole city drunk." "Or, you know, advocate workers' rights to bring down working hours, improve conditions, and meet a base minimum of pay.

Sazed?" she asked, peeking back out into the hallway. The steward paused, turning back. "Yes, Mistress Vin?" "Kelsier," Vin said quietly. "He's a good man, isn't he?" Sazed smiled. "A very good man, Mistress. One of the best I've known." Vin nodded slightly. "A good man..." she said softly. "I don't think I've ever known one of those before.

The less we see chaos, and the more we see the pattern , the better we're going to be at understanding just what we fight -- and just how to defeat it.

You must love him enough to trust his wishes, even if you disagree with them. You must respect him—no matter how wrong you think he may be, no matter how poor you think his decisions, you must respect his desire to make them. Even if one of them includes loving you.

What if everybody is frightened, and nobody has the answers?

Good men can make terrible kings," Tindwyl noted. "But bad men cannot make good kings

Some people assume that authors write books because we have vivid imaginations and want to share our vision. Other people assume that authors write because we are bursting with stories, and therefore must scribble those stories down in moments of creative propondidty. Both groups of people are completely wrong. Authors write books for one, and only one, reason: because we like to torture people.

Technology is limited", Jason said, "Only the mind is infinite.

We take to the skies, Stormblessed," Lunamor said. "We will walk no more in coming days. This is the end.

Our words, like our hearts, are weapons still hot from the forging, beating themselves into new shapes each time we swing them.

They're afraid of our ability to hear the stars. [...] And to them it makes us alien.

Jasnah didn't want to merely prove her points. She wanted to drive them right into your skull, with a flourish and a pithy epigram.

That's exactly the problem. Everyone's convinced that their lives are over just because their hearts stopped beating.

Nonsense. Balderdash. Figgldygrak. Isn't it odd that gibberish words are often the sounds of other words, cut up and dismembered, then stitched into something like them—yet wholly unlike them at the same time?

A true Chicago dog looks like someone fired a bazooka at a vegetable stand, then scraped the remnants off the wall and slathered it on a tube of meat.

There's always another secret.

Surround yourself with people too afraid to speak, and you left yourself to only your own ideas. That could be disastrous. It was important to have men who would question you and see flaws in your plans, so long as you could control them. It was all about control.

Whenever one does discover a moment of joy, beauty enters the world. Human beings, we can't create energy; we can only harness it. We can't create matter; we can only shape it. We can't even create life; we can only nurture it.

Have you ever tried to bribe a Korathi priest, Lukel?" Shuden asked pointedly. Lukel looked around uncomfortably. "I'd rather not answer that question, thank you.

I don't care what it takes. I'm tired of being pretty and nice...I want to DO something.

Imaginary things were often the only items of real substance in people's lives.

You want to fight a god? You'd better have one on your side too.