Quotes from The Hero of Ages

Brandon Sanderson ·  572 pages

Rating: (180.1K votes)


“Elend smiled. "Oh, come on. You have to admit that you're unusual, Vin. You're like some strange mixture of a noblewoman, a street urchin, and a cat. Plus, you've mangaged - in our short three years together - to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancée. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Well, Vin says that there's something behind all this, right? Some evil force of doom or whatever? Well, if I were said force of doom, then I certainly wouldn't have used my powers to turn the land black. It just lacks flair. Red. Now, that would be an interesting color. Think of the possibilities--if the ash were red, the rivers would run like blood. Black is so monotonous that you can forget about it, but red--you'd always be thinking, 'Why, look at that. That hill is red. That evil force of doom trying to destroy me certainly has style.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“I ask of you your lives,” Elend said, voice echoing, “and your courage. I ask of you your faith, and your honor—your strength, and your compassion. For today, I lead you to die. I will not ask you to welcome this event. I will not insult you by calling it well, or just, or even glorious. But I will say this.
“Each moment you fight is a gift to those in this cavern. Each second we fight is a second longer that thousands of people can draw breath. Each stroke of the sword, each koloss felled, each breath earned is a victory! It is a person protected for a moment longer, a life extended, an enemy frustrated!”
There was a brief pause.
“In the end, they will kill us,” Elend said, voice loud, ringing in the cavern. “But first, they shall fear us!”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages



“It's a mystery," Vin said, narrowing her eyes and smiling. "We Mistborn are incredibly mysterious."
Elend paused." Um...I'm Mistborn too, Vin. That doesn't make any sense."
"We Mistborn need not make sense," Vin said." It's beneath us. Come on-the sun's already down. We need to get moving.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Faith means that it doesn't matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“It sounds to me, young one," Haddek said, "that you are searching for something that cannot be found."
"The truth?" Sazed said.
"No," Haddek replied. "A religion that requires no faith of its believers.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“There has to be a balance, Vin," Elend said. "Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be." He sighed. "But for now," he said, nodding to the side, "we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages



“For now, I only wish to make a simple acknowledgement of the woman who held the power just before me.
Of all of us who touched it, I feel she was the most worthy.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Ham smiled. "Cett's going to be furious."
Elend shrugged. "He's a paraplegic. What's he going to do? Bite us?”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“A man is what he has passion about,” Breeze said. “I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“I'm an amalgamation of what I've needed to be. Part scholar, part rebel, part nobleman, part Mistborn, and part soldier. Sometimes I don't even know myself. I had a devil of a time getting all those pieces to work together. And, just when I'm starting to get it figured out, the world up and ends on me.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“I don't have much time for stories," Vin said.

"Seems that fewer and fewer people do, these days." A canopy kept off the ash, but he seemed unconcerned about the mists. "It makes me wonder what is so alluring about the real world that gives them all such a fetish for it. It's not a very nice place these days.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages



“Elend started. "Vin!" Then, he smiled. "What took you so long?"
"I got delayed by an Inquistor and a dark god," she said. "Now hustle.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“A thing of nature.
For every Push, there is a Pull. A consequence.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Spook smiled. "Elend is a forgetful scholar - twice as bad as Sazed ever was. He gets lost in his books and forgets about meeting he himself called. He only dresses with any sense of fashion because a Terriswoman bought him a new wardrobe. War has change him some, but on the inside, I think he's still just a dreamer caught in a world with too much violence.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“The nature of the world is that when we create something, we often destroy something else in the process.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Breeze turned to look out the window. "You were always the best of us, Sazed," he said quietly. "Because you believed in something.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages



“To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“What kind of woman is still able to trust people after everything she's been through? If she'd been Vin, she would have stabbed him in the back at the first opportunity, and that would have probably been the right thing to do. Yet, this girl just continued to trust. It was like finding a beautiful plant growing alone in a field of burnt ash.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“You've managed-- in our short three years together-- to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiance. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It's a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn't you say?”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Breeze chuckled. "He was completely insane, you know. The worse things got, the more he'd joke. I
remember how chipper he was the very day after one of our worst defeats, when we lost most of our
skaa army to that fool Yeden. Kell walked in, a spring in his step, making one of his inane jokes."
"Sounds insensitive," Allrianne said.
Ham shook his head. "No. He was just determined. He always said that laughter was something the
Lord Ruler couldn't take from him. He planned and executed the overthrow of a thousand-year
empire—and he did it as a kind of . . . penance for letting his wife die thinking that he hated her. But, he
did it all with a smirk on his lips. Like every joke was his way of slapping fate in the face."
"We need what he had," Elend said.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with no proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn't occur in the present day?”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages



“People with passion are people who will destroy—for a man's passion is not true until he proves how much he's willing to sacrifice for it. Will he kill? Will he go to war? Will he break and discard that which he has, all in the name of what he needs?”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“I want you to tell me
about the Survivor," he finally said.
"He was lord of the mists," Demoux said immediately.
"Not the rhetoric," Elend said. "Someone tell me about the man, Kelsier. I never met him, you know. I
saw him once, right before he died, but I never knew him."
"What's the point?" Cett asked. "We've all heard the stories. He's practically a god, if you listen to the
skaa."
"Just do as I ask," Elend said.
The tent was still for a few moments. Finally, Ham spoke. "Kell was . . . grand. He wasn't just a man,
he was bigger than that. Everything he did was large—his dreams, the way he spoke, the way he thought.
. . ."
"And it wasn't false," Breeze added. "I can tell when a man is being a fake. That's why I started my
first job with Kelsier, actually. Amidst all the pretenders and posturers, he was genuine. Everyone wanted
to be the best. Kelsier really was."
"He was a man," Vin said quietly. "Just a man. Yet, you always knew he'd succeed. He made you be
what he wanted you to be."
"So he could use you," Breeze said.
"But you were better when he was done with you," Ham added”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Spook: No, I'm not troubled. In fact, I actually think everything is going to be all right. Finally.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


“Vin, Vin. Why can't you see? This isn't about good or evil. Morality doesn't even enter into it. Good men will kill as quickly for what they want as evil men—only the things they want are different.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages


About the author

Brandon Sanderson
Born place: in Lincoln, Nebraska, The United States
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“The renegade strand of hair nipped her eyes once more. With a swift, steady hand, Oscar pushed it away from her face. His fingertip left a trail of fire along her cheek. Camille reached up to help him tuck the strand back, and their fingers met. She knew for certain the flush had returned to her ears.
Oscar dropped his arm and walked to the rail, wrapping his strong hands around the carved wood.
“He is used to having things go his way,” Oscar said, his voice low and only for her ears. Camille moved to stand beside hm.
“Have you always done everything he’s asked of you?” She was cautious not to come off sounding snide.
His knuckles whitened as he gripped the rail tighter, as if to hold something back. Hold something in.
“No.”
She hadn’t expected him to give her an answer, and certainly not that one.
“No? I don’t believe it. What have you done that’s gone against his wishes?”
Oscar had been her father’s shadow since day one. He’d watched and obeyed William Rowen with the kind of devotion any eager apprentice would show his teacher.
Oscar had been staring at the water, at the mounting churn of the waves. Now he shifted his eyes to her and fixed her with a look so strong and deep, she felt helpless beneath it.
“He asked me to stop associating with you,” he answered, still hushed. Camille’s eyes watered with mortification and dread. Her father had spoken to Oscar, too. She wiped her sweaty palms on the hips of her trousers.
“But clearly,” Oscar continued, leaning toward her, “I didn’t listen.”
His gaze revolved out to the ocean again, releasing Camille. Air flowed back down her windpipe. This was beyond humiliation. Her father couldn’t do this. He couldn’t order people to stop speaking to her.
“Why not?” she asked, her breath uneven from a cross of fury and the steadfast way Oscar had looked at her. “He could fire you.”
He moved away from the rail.
“If he wants to fire me for speaking to you, for looking at you…” He turned back to her on his way to the quarterdeck and held her gaze again. “Then I’ll risk it.”
She watched in awe as Oscar took the helm from a sailor and placed himself behind the great spoked wheel. He’d risk everything he had to be able to speak with her, to just look at her. His bravery made her feel no taller than a hermit crab. She’d so quickly, dutifully, accepted her father’s request to set her focus solely on Randall. But she mattered to Oscar. She mattered, and that one truth made her wish she was brave enough to risk everything, too.”
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