The Way of Kings

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.

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

And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived.

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

To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.

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

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

Ah, the outdoors,' Shallan said. 'I visited that mythical place once.

We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.

Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.

Too many of us take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes.

What did you put in the fire?" Kaladin said. "To make that special smoke?" "Nothing. It was just and ordinary fire." "But, I saw-" "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.

Authority doesn't come from a rank.," Kaladin said, fingering the spheres in his pocket. "Where does it come from?" "From the men who give it to you. That's the only way to get it.

The hallmark of insecurity is bravado.

This world, it is a tempest sometimes. But remember, the sun always rises again.

I once saw a spindly man carrying a stone larger than his head upon his back. He stumbled beneath the weight, shirtless under the sun, wearing only a loincloth. He tottered down a busy thoroughfare. People made way for him. Not because they sympathized with him, but because they feared the momentum of his steps. You dare not impede one such as this. The monarch is like this man, stumbling along, the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. Many give way before him, but so few are willing to step in and help carry the stone. They do not wish to attach themselves to the work, lest they condemn themselves to a life full of extra burdens. I left my carriage that day and took up the stone, lifting it for the man. I believe my guards were embarrassed. 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.

Brightness...I believe you stray into sarcasm." "Funny.I thought I'd run straight into it,screaming at the top of my lungs.

Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees.

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?

In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method.

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.” “The Codes?” “No. The Way of Kings.” “That storming book.

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 hat I survived.

An excuse is what you make after the deed is done, while a justification is what you offer before.

Can you feel it? Something just changed. I believe that’s the sound the world makes when it pisses itself.

Of all the recruits in his cohort, he had learned the quickest. How to hold the spear, how to stand to spar. He’d done it almost without instruction. That had shocked Tukks. But why should it have? 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.

Kaladin screamed, reaching the end of the bridge. Finding a tiny surge of strength somewhere, he raised his spear and threw himself off the end of the wooden platform, launching into the air above the cavernous void. Bridgemen cried out in dismay. Syl zipped about him with worry. Parshendi looked up with amazement as a lone bridgeman sailed through the air toward them. His drained, worn-out body barely had any strength left. In that moment of crystallized time, he looked down on his enemies. Parshendi with their marbled red and black skin. Soldiers raising finely crafted weapons, as if to cut him from the sky. Strangers, oddities in carapace breastplates and skullcaps. Many of them wearing beards. Beards woven with glowing gemstones. Kaladin breathed in. Like the power of salvation itself—like rays of sunlight from the eyes of the Almighty—Stormlight exploded from those gemstones. It streamed through the air, pulled in visible streams, like glowing columns of luminescent smoke. Twisting and turning and spiraling like tiny funnel clouds until they slammed into him. And the storm came to life again.

A story doesn't live until it is imagined in someone's mind.

Cowardice can imitate heroism if given no where to flee

Actually, no," Shallan said. "I'm just fond of hyperbole." "I'm not," he said. "It's a real bastard to spell" "Kabsal!

The finest defense of character is correct action. Acquaint yourself with virtue, and you can expect proper treatment from those around you.

Can’t you just relax,” she asked him, “just for a little while?” “The rules—” “Everyone else—” “I cannot be everyone else!” Dalinar said, more sharply than he intended. “If I ignore our code and ethics, what am I, Navani? The other highprinces and lighteyes deserve recrimination for what they do, and I have let them know it. If I abandon my principles, then I become something far worse than they. A hypocrite!

I understood in a moment of stillness,' Litima read. 'Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate.

We want to believe that there were better men once. That makes us think it could be that way again. But people don't change. They are corrupt now.They were corrupt then.

It's better to choke on wine than on dishwater.

I'm always truthful as well. So full of truth, in fact, that sometimes it squeezes the lies right out my lips. There isn't a place for them inside, you see.