Brandon Sanderson Quotes

Llarimar had told him to do his best. That sounded like an awful lot of work. Unfortunately, doing nothing was beginning to seem like even MORE work.

~ Brandon Sanderson

That was the nature of the waters. You never knew what lurked below.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Cleaning the wound is often more painfulthan the cut itself.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Marryin' is the one thing people seem to get worse at the more they do it. Well, that and bein' alive.

~ Brandon Sanderson

All people are musicians Wit countered. The question is whether or not they share their songs.

~ Brandon Sanderson

What a pair they were - a Mistborn who felt guilty wasting coins to jump and a nobleman who thought balls were too expensive.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Only expectation has value as currency

~ Brandon Sanderson

Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and w

~ Brandon Sanderson

I think given the choice between loving Mare - betrayal included - and never knowing her, I'd chose love. I risked, and I lost, but the risk was still worth it.

~ Brandon Sanderson

A scholar knows not to waste time rediscovering information already known.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Err on the side of awesome.

~ Brandon Sanderson

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

~ Brandon Sanderson

I am a Smedry, and we do ridiculous, unexpected, eccentric things like this all the time! Ha-ha!

~ Brandon Sanderson

I know, better than anyone else, that there are no heroes coming to save us. There are no good Epics. None of them protect us. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

~ Brandon Sanderson

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.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Kelsier smiled. 'It means that you, Vin, are a very special person. You have a power that most high noblemen envy. It is a power that, had you been born an aristocrat, would have made you one of the most deadly and influential people in all of the final empire.'Kelsier leaned forward again. 'But, you weren't born an aristocrat. You're not noble, Vin. You don't have to play by their rules--and that makes you even more powerful.

~ Brandon Sanderson

The Librarians control the information... They control what gets read, what gets seen, and what gets learned. Because of that they have power.

~ Brandon Sanderson

If nobody changes the world, if nobody works to make it better, then we stagnate.

~ Brandon Sanderson

The world is progressing. One man cannot slow it, no matter how determined he is.He stopped in the

~ Brandon Sanderson

Sometimes Vin imagined she was like the ash, or the wind, or the mist itself. A thing without thought, capable of simply being, not thinking, caring, or hurting. Then she could be...free.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Some of us fought back with guns and assassinations. Others fought back with a little hot dog stand on the corner.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Truth is individual.”“What? No it’s not. Truth is . . . it’s Truth. Reality.”“Your truth is what you see,” Pattern said, sounding confused. “What else could it be? That is the truth that you spoke to me, the truth that brings power.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Do I need to wriggle my breasts at you again?No, please. I don't know if I'd be able to stand the theological debate that would follow.

~ Brandon Sanderson

A person needed to experience real danger or they would never find joy in excelling. There had to be a risk of failure, the chance to die.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Though in this genre we write about the fantastic, the stories work best when there is solid grounding in our world. Magic works best for me when it aligns with scientific principles. Worldbuilding works best when it draws from sources in our world. Characters work best when they’re grounded in solid human emotion and experience.

~ Brandon Sanderson

The measure of a person is not how much they have lived. It is not how easily they jump at a noise or how quick they are to show emotion. It's how they make use of what life has shown them.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Control is the basis of all true power. Authority and strength are matters of perception

~ Brandon Sanderson

We create things to watch them grow, Ruin, she said. To take pleasure in seeing that which we love become more than it was before.

~ Brandon Sanderson

If you perpetuate the dreams of the past, you stifle your own dreams of the future.

~ Brandon Sanderson

People are valuable, Mistress Vin, and so—therefore—are their beliefs.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Men like you preach change, but I wonder. Is this a battle we can really fight?”“You’re fighting it already, Goodman Mennis. You’re just losing horribly.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Men are more resilient than that, I think. Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Never go on a date unarmed.” Words of wisdom from my father. Well, my foster father. I was an orphan, of course. The best kings always are.

~ Brandon Sanderson

a depressed person doesn't want you to try and cheer them up. It makes us sick.

~ Brandon Sanderson

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.

~ Brandon Sanderson

You learned this,” Kabsal said, lifting up her drawing of Jasnah, “from a book.”“Er…yes?”He looked back at the picture. “I need to read more.

~ Brandon Sanderson

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.

~ Brandon Sanderson

That's kind of what trust is, isn't it? A willful self-delusion.

~ Brandon Sanderson

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

That's what trust is. It's about giving someone else power over you. Power to hurt you.

~ Brandon Sanderson