The Way of Kings Quotes

“Brightness Markal! What a disaster that hairstyle is; how brave of you to show it to the world.”

“Life before Death. Strength before Weakness. Journey before Destination.”

“Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right.”

″‘If I should die,’ Dalinar said, ‘then I would do so having lived my life right. It is not the destination that matters, but how one arrives there.‘”

“I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.”

″‘Brightness...I believe you stray into sarcasm.’ ‘Funny.I thought I’d run straight into it,screaming at the top of my lungs.‘”

“Sometimes the prize is not worth the costs. The means by which we achieve victory are as important as the victory itself.”

“Does one deserve to have evil done to her by consequence of putting herself where evil can reach her?”

″‘There are two kinds of people in this world, son. Those who save lives, and those who take lives.’ ‘And what of those who protect and defend? Those who save lives by taking lives?’ ‘That’s like trying to stop a storm by blowing harder. Ridiculous. You can’t protect by killing.‘”

″‘Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I’ve discarded a belief in right and wrong. ... Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? 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.‘”

“Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can--what we we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.”

“It is not the destination that matters, but how one arrives there.”

A man’s emotions are what define him, 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.

″‘What you saw belongs to you. A story doesn’t live until it is imagined in someone’s mind.’ ‘What does the story mean, then?’ ‘It means what you want it to mean,’ Hoid said. ‘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.‘”

“I want you to go back into the barrack and tell the men to come out after the storm. Tell them to look up at me tied here. Tell them I’ll open my eyes and look back at them, and they’ll know that I survived.”

“No complaining today. You do this thing too much. Do not make me kick you. I do not like kicking. It hurts my toes.”

“One can ignore a poor shirtless wretch doing such labor, but none ignore a king sharing the load. Perhaps we should switch places more often. If a king is seen to assume the burden of the poorest of men, perhaps there will be those who will help him with his own load, so invisible, yet so daunting.”

“Overcome your guilt. Care, but not too much. Take responsibility, but don’t blame yourself. Protect, save, help- but know when to give up. They’re precarious ledges to walk. How do I do it?”

“Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.”

“In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished”