I can’t do the same,” she said. “I remember being a child, and assuming the world belonged to me. That I’d be able to seize it when I grew older, accomplish my dreams, become something great. Yet as I’ve aged, I feel like less and less is under my control. I can’t help thinking it shouldn’t be that way. How could I have been so in control as a youth, yet often feel so helpless as an adult?
Women are difficult enough to understand, he thought, and I had to go and pick the oddest one of the lot.
Instead, he gripped her forearm. “Why, Jasnah? Why have you always denied me?” “Other than the fact that you are a detestable buffoon who achieves only the lowest level of mediocrity, as it is the best your limited mind can imagine? I can’t possibly think of a reason.
He avoided stepping on the plants – though he wasn’t sure why he bothered. The crops hardly seemed worth the effort. Wan, with wilted brown leaves, the plants seemed as depressed as the people who tended them.
Brother. ‘You must find the most important words a man can say.
A man can say all kinds of things, but where he sets his spheres, that’s where his heart is.
She embraced him, and he found himself weeping. The daughter he’d never had, the little child of the streets. Though she was still small, she’d outgrown him. And she loved him anyway. He held his daughter close against his own broken soul.
It would be like finding out that you’d drawn lots for dessert at the Factory and been only one number off, only it didn’t matter because Pete already snuck in to steal the dessert, so nobody was going to get any anyway – not even Pete, because it turns out there had never been any dessert to begin with.
Sazed, I’ve raised some fifteen daughters,” Tindwyl said, entering the room. “No teenage girl is stable. Some are just better at hiding it than others.
Allomancy wasn’t just about fighting and killing. It was about skill and grace. It was something beautiful.
Let the Vorin believe as they wish – the wise among them will find goodness and solace in their faith; the fools would be fools no matter what they believed.
Silence took one of the burlap sacks from her pack and handed it to William Ann, then removed her hammer. It wasn’t some war weapon, like her grandfather had spoken of. Just a simple tool for pounding nails. Or other things.
There isn’t much time for a plan. This is more of a hunch with scaffolding.
How did they decide what was valuable? Did they all just gather together, sit around in their suits and gowns, and say, “Oi. Let’s start eatin’ fish eggs, and make the stuff real expensive. That’ll rust their brains, it will.” Then they’d have a nice round of rich folks’ laughter and throw some servants off the top of a building to see what kind of splats they’d make when they hit.
What honor can we find on a battlefield while our people starve?
Is it such a shameful thing, he thought, to be the man who likes to provide information for others, rather than be the one who has to use that information?
Just for that, I shall hunt your firstborn and laugh with glee as I tell them of your death in terrible detail, with many unpleasant adjectives!
I’ll do what I can, make the decisions as I see they must be made, Elend thought. Then accept the consequences.
He felt a swelling of pride. Ridiculous, of course. He had endangered the kindgdom – how would people react if they knew the Blackthorn himself had broken before a crisis of conscience? They’d laugh. In that moment, he didn’t care. So long as he could be a hero to this woman.
This is the true test of a man. He who will stand when others grow complacent.