Top 500 Brandon Sanderson Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “For nothing is truly complete until the day it is finally destroyed.”

— Brandon Sanderson

402. “The day of heroes has passed,” Uncle Edwarn said. “The stories of people breaking out of history belong to another world. We have reached an era of modernism, both louder and more silent at the same time. You watch. Where once kings and warriors shaped the world, now quiet men in offices will do the same – and do it far, far more effectively.”

— Brandon Sanderson

403. “She wore trousers, because skirts were stupid, and boots, ’cuz stuff needed to be kicked.”

— Brandon Sanderson

404. “The God King’s superiority was arbitrary, much like Lightsong’s divinity – both part of a grand game of make-believe. But he’d found that imaginary things were often the only items of real substance in people’s lives.”

— Brandon Sanderson

405. “Brightness Markal! What a disaster that hairstyle is; how brave of you to show it to the world.”

— Brandon Sanderson

406. “I love to do what I do. So, I do work long hours.”

— Brandon Sanderson

407. “To age truly was to suffer the ultimate treason, that of one’s body against oneself.”

— Brandon Sanderson

408. “My outlines are always very goal-based. What do I want to have happen by the ending and how can I earn that.”

— Brandon Sanderson

409. “Visit?” Yeden asked uncomfortably. “You’re going to visit the Lord Ruler? Are you insa... ” Yeden trailed off, then glanced at the rest of the room. “Right. I forgot.”

— Brandon Sanderson

410. “I think I would feel more comfortable in this city,” she said, “if I didn’t know that our Mistborn had the volatile emotions of a teenage girl.”

— Brandon Sanderson

411. “But he’d found that imaginary things were often the only items of real substance in people’s lives.”

— Brandon Sanderson

412. “There were books involved.”

— Brandon Sanderson

413. “Kelsier glanced down at his hands and forearms. They still burned sometimes, though he was certain the pain was only in his mind. He looked up at Mennis and smiled. “You ask why I smile, Goodman Mennis? Well, the Lord Ruler thinks he has claimed laughter and joy for himself. I’m disinclined to let him do so. This is one battle that doesn’t take very much effort to fight.”

— Brandon Sanderson

414. “He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his men; he smiled because that was what he did. That was how he proved to the Lord Ruler-and to himself-that he wasn’t beaten.”

— Brandon Sanderson

415. “He ate my horse.”

— Brandon Sanderson

416. “What would they think if they knew that their champion – the Hero of Ages, their savior – doubted himself? Perhaps they wouldn’t be shocked at all. In a way, this is what worries me most. Maybe, in their hearts, they wonder – just as I do. When they see me, do they see a liar?”

— Brandon Sanderson

417. “There are no good men, Bleeder said. Choice is an illusion, lawman. There are those created to be selfish and there are those created to be selfless. This does not make them good or evil, any more than the ravaging lion is evil when compared to the placid rabbit.”

— Brandon Sanderson

418. “You didn’t promise to kill me,” Wayne said, pulling on his socks. “You promised to have killed me. That there be the present perfect tense.”

— Brandon Sanderson

419. “I need you to stick your head in a bucket of water and slowly count to a thousand!”

— Brandon Sanderson

420. “Since nothing I can say would be able to pierce your delusions, let the fact that I make no arguments stand as ultimate proof that I am right. As Plato once said that his friend Socrates once said, “I know that I’m right because I’m the only person humble enough to admit that I’m not.” Or something like that. I.”

— Brandon Sanderson

421. “Remember why we live. Remember warmth, remember good food. Remember friends, and song, and evenings spent around the hearth.”

— Brandon Sanderson

422. “I am a stick,′ he said. He sounded satisfied.”

— Brandon Sanderson

423. “Blushweaver sighed. “You avoid thinking, you avoid me, you avoid effort... is there anything you don’t avoid?” “Breakfast.”

— Brandon Sanderson

424. “Normally, I have a lot of alpha readers on my books. These are people that, once I finish a novel, I let them look at it and give me a reader response.”

— Brandon Sanderson

425. “Kelsier watched after him, then did the only rational thing. He ate the bolt he’d taken from the bottom of the stool.”

— Brandon Sanderson

426. “You have to learn when to care. And when to let go. You’ll grow calluses.”

— Brandon Sanderson

427. “I know that many women who read this will see it only as further proof that I am the godless heretic everyone claims. – From Oathbringer, preface.”

— Brandon Sanderson

428. “The entire point of life is to find ways to get others to do your work for you. Don’t you know anything about basic economics?”

— Brandon Sanderson

429. “I’m mysterious,” Kaladin said. “I used to think you were. Then I found out you don’t like good puns – it’s truly possible to know too much about somebody.”

— Brandon Sanderson

430. “If you are anything like me – Clever, fond of goat cheese, and devilishly handsome – then you have undoubtedly read many books.”

— Brandon Sanderson

431. “The best performances, are those that can be performed once.”

— Brandon Sanderson

432. “Scared to go onward, but terrified to go back to what you were.”

— Brandon Sanderson

433. “It’s better if I have a hat... You wanna know a guy? Put on his hat.” -Wayne.”

— Brandon Sanderson

434. “Whenever one does discover a moment of joy, beauty enters the world. Human beings, we can’t create energy; we can only harness it. We can’t create matter; we can only shape it. We can’t even create life; we can only nurture it.”

— Brandon Sanderson

435. “Everything is a contest. All dealings among men are a contest in which some will succeed and others fail. And some are failing quite spectacularly.”

— Brandon Sanderson

436. “Sometimes it was daunting, knowing how easily I could break things. This one simple curse seemed to dominate my entire life.”

— Brandon Sanderson

437. “Elend smiled, recognizing the reference. Trentison’s Supplying in Scale. A few years earlier, he would have agreed with Yomen, and the two would probably have spent the afternoon discussing the philosophy of leadership in Yomen’s palace. However, Elend had learned things in the last few years that he simply hadn’t been able to get form his studies.”

— Brandon Sanderson

438. “Vin didn’t consider herself to be either self-assured or self-motivated. Still, she saw no point in asking why. Life had taught her that sometimes things simply happened.”

— Brandon Sanderson

439. “Sparks. Good metaphor. Walking on crumpled tinfoil. I’d have to remember that one.”

— Brandon Sanderson

440. “I see only one woman here. The one who is standing up.”

— Brandon Sanderson

441. “Sometimes we find it hardest to accept in others that which we cling to in ourselves.”

— Brandon Sanderson

442. “If you don’t believe what I’m telling you, then ask yourself this: would any decent, kind-hearted individual become a writer? Of course not.”

— Brandon Sanderson

443. “It had been like discovering that Santa Claus was secretly a Nazi.”

— Brandon Sanderson

444. “At his neck, hanging outside his clothing, Demoux wore a necklace that bore a small silver spear: the increasingly popular symbol of the Church of the Survivor. It seemed odd to her that the weapon that killed Kelsier would become the symbol of his followers.”

— Brandon Sanderson

445. “Ham shook his head, sitting down, pouring himself something to drink. “I don’t get it, El. Why’d she attack him?” “She’s loony,” Spook said.”

— Brandon Sanderson

446. “Be slow to trust a man with clothing that was too new. You didn’t get to wear new, clean clothing by doing honest work.”

— Brandon Sanderson

447. “Yes, Bastille. I keep trying to get killed because it’s inconvenient for you.”

— Brandon Sanderson

448. “Men in power always pretend things like virtue, or divine guidance, some kind of mandate to ‘protect’ the rest of us. If we believe that the Almighty put them where they are, it’s easier for us to swallow what they do to us.”

— Brandon Sanderson

449. “I seek the truth,” Shallan said. “Wherever it may be, whoever may hold it. That’s who I am.”

— Brandon Sanderson

450. “You watch yourself,” I said, wishing I had something to stand on to bring my eyes level with his. “When you are broken and mourning your fall from grace, I will consume your shadow in my own, and laugh at your misery.”

— Brandon Sanderson