Words of Radiance Quotes

″‘Father!’ Jasnah shouted. Gavilar hesitated as he stepped out onto the balcony, looking back at her. The balcony broke beneath him. Jasnah screamed, dashing through the room to the broken balcony, falling to her knees at the edge. Wind tugged locks of hair loose from her bun as she watched two men fall.”

“You were not shocked when a child knew how to breathe. You were not shocked when a skyeel took flight for the first time. You should not be shocked when you hand Kaladin Stormblessed a spear and he knows how to use it.”

“He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken. Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway. It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life.”

“There are several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means.”

″‘I ain’t grouchy,’ Teft snapped. ‘I just have a low threshold for stupidity.‘”

″‘You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,’ Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, ‘but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.‘”

“Jasnah held up a finger to quiet her. ‘All things have three components: the soul, the body, and the mind. That place you saw, Shadesmar, is what we call the Cognitive Realm—the place of the mind.‘”

“I say that there is no role for women--there is, instead, a role for each woman, and she must make it for herself. ... A woman’s strength should not be in her role, whatever she chooses it to be, but in the power to choose that role.”

“Words are where most change begins.”

“Power is an illusion of perception.”

″‘You could be fire,’ Shallan said. ‘I am a stick.’ The stick was not particularly eloquent.”

“Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.”

″‘Storms, you’re spoiled,’ Kaladin said, smiling. ‘I’m refined, you insolent farmer,’ Adolin said. Then he grinned. ‘Besides, I’ll have you know that I had to use cold water for my baths while here.’ ‘Poor boy.‘”

″‘You want too much of me’ he snapped at her as he reached the other side of the chasm. ‘I’m not some glorious knight of ancient days. I’m a broken man. Do you hear me Syl? I’m broken.’ She zipped up to him and whispered ‘That’s what they all were, silly.‘”

“Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.”

″‘I can see what you’re up to.’ ‘Five foot six inches,’ Shallan said. ‘I suspect that’s all I will ever be up to, unfortunately.‘”

″‘I will protect even those I hate,’ Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. ‘So long as it is right.‘”

“All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names.”

″‘How . . .’ Dalinar said. ‘You fell into a chasm!’ ‘I fell face-first, sir,’ Kaladin said, ‘and fortunately, I’m particularly hard-headed.‘”

“Expectation. That is the true soul of art. If you can give a man more than he expects, then he will laud you his entire life. If you can create an air of anticipation and feed it properly, you will succeed.”