Shallan’s mental image of Jasnah Kholin was of someone almost divine. It was, upon reflection, an odd way to regard a determined atheist.

Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?”“Dumb luck, ” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.

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

To live was to be a fragment of the cosmere that was experiencing itself.

For glory lit, and life alive, for goals unreached and aims to strive. All men must try, the wind did see. It is the test, it is the dream.

To be human is to seek beauty, Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in your way.

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

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

Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.

The only time you seem honest is when you’re insulting someone!”“The only honest things I can say to you are insults.

It’s not a lie, ” Shallan said, “if everyone understands and knows what it means.”“Mm. Those are some of the best lies.

Waiting. Like it or not, it's a skill all spies have to master eventually.

How come I can pick my ears, but not my nose? Who made up that rule anyway? How can you say that's the way it is, that's just the way it goes, why don't you decide fore yourself what you can do?

Well I grew up in Canada in a really small town. We didn't have running water for a long time and we didn't have TV. Then when we did get TV we only had one channel.

Whatever it is that you're passionate about... try to figure out a way to make money at it and give it a shot.

Love is the eternal quest: almost everyone wants to love and be loved.

There's no point in worrying about things you can't influence.

Custodial education does not have as its objective the education of youth but rather social control over them. It suppresses rather than stimulates their intellectual and physical energies.

The right timing is not always our timing.

The people that weep before my paintings are having the same religious experience that I had when I painted it.

Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.