Kaladin > Kaladin's Quotes

“the brilliant book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman describes seven key abilities most beneficial for human beings: the ability to motivate ourselves, to persist against frustration, to delay gratification, to regulate moods, to hope, to empathize, and to control impulse. Many of those who commit violence never learned these skills. If you know a young person who lacks them all, that’s an important pre-incident indicator, and he needs help.”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

“I imagine this conversation after a stranger is told No by a woman he has approached: MAN: What a bitch. What’s your problem, lady? I was just trying to offer a little help to a pretty woman. What are you so paranoid about? WOMAN: You’re right. I shouldn’t be wary. I’m overreacting about nothing. I mean, just because a man makes an unsolicited and persistent approach in an underground parking lot in a society where crimes against women have risen four times faster than the general crime rate, and three out of four women will suffer a violent crime; and just because I’ve personally heard horror stories from every female friend I’ve ever had; and just because I have to consider where I park, where I walk, whom I talk to, and whom I date in the context of whether someone will kill me or rape me or scare me half to death; and just because several times a week someone makes an inappropriate remark, stares at me, harasses me, follows me, or drives alongside my car pacing me; and just because I have to deal with the apartment manager who gives me the creeps for reasons I haven’t figured out, yet I can tell by the way he looks at me that given an opportunity he’d do something that would get us both on the evening news; and just because these are life-and-death issues most men know nothing about so that I’m made to feel foolish for being cautious even though I live at the center of a swirl of possible hazards DOESN’T MEAN A WOMAN SHOULD BE WARY OF A STRANGER WHO IGNORES THE WORD ‘NO’.”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

“Those men who are the most violent are not at all carried away by fury. In fact, their heart rates actually drop and they become physiologically calmer as they become more violent.”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

“We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning.”
― Gavin de Becker

“You have more brain cells than there are grains of sand on your favorite beach, and you have cleverness, dexterity, and creativity—all of which powerfully combine when you are at risk—if you listen to your intuition”
― Gavin de Becker

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You'll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to you.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“I realized that success in most things depends on finding people stupid enough to volunteer to try doing them but smart enough to have a chance of succeeding.”
― Jack Campbell, Ascendant

“From the stars we came, and to the stars we return.”
― Jack Campbell, Relentless

“Courage, real bravery, is being afraid and doing what you need to do anyway.”
― Jack Campbell, Invincible

“Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. I’m not even a god.”
― Jack Campbell, Guardian

“You sold us and your word of honor because you think it's some kind of game, don't you? A game with rules you don't have have to play by. A game you're still not worried about losing because you think you're too smart." Paul turned away. "Guess what? Game's over, and you lost. Go to hell and stay there.”
― John G. Hemry, Against All Enemies

“We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship – to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate.”
― Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate

“At some point, you have to accept the fact that any movement creates waves, and the only other option is to lie still and learn nothing.”
― Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate

“We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground we should ultimately thank.”
― Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate

“Don't believe the lie of individual trees, each a monument to its own self-made success. A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence.”
― Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate

“human creativity in the arts, and human innovation in technology—are intimately related. Every advancement in technology, including military technology, remains, foremost, a feat of imagination. This is where humans excel.”
― Deepak Malhotra, The Peacemaker's Code

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“You can’t win unless you try to win, but you can lose by trying not to lose.”
― Jack Campbell, Relentless

“It is difficult—it is very difficult, to befriend where you wish to consume, to find those who, when they ask Do I have you still, when they end a letter with Yours, mean it in any substantive way.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“To love is in part the attempt to become a creature worthy of love.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Howling Dark

“I told you once that the universe has no center, and thus every point is its center, and it is so. If I have strained you, reader, by my repeated insistence that every action matters, that every moment of every life is the moment, the axis about which all things turn, understand that I say these things because they are true. Every step, every turn, every refusal to step. Everything matters. The cosmos is not cold or indifferent because we are not indifferent, and we are a part of that cosmos, of that grand order which has dropped from the hand of He who created it. Every decision creates its ripples, every moment burns its mark on time, every action leads us ever nearer to that last day, that final last battle and the answer to that last question: Darkness? Or light?”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“Security is not a license for people in authority to hide the tactics they would never openly admit to using.”
― Jack Campbell, Invincible

“The longstanding thorn in your side Captain Numos is stupid. In fact, Numos is so dense that I’m surprised he doesn’t have his own event horizon.”
― Jack Campbell, Fearless

“... people didn't fight for grand causes or great purposes, but for the closest and most personal of reasons. They might say the fought for high ideals, but in practice they fought for the comrades beside them and their loved ones at home.”
― Jack Campbell

“Data that conflicts with beliefs is often ignored,”
― Jack Campbell, Guardian

“I respect you far too much to think that empty pride is the only motivator you could call on. I think what you call pride is something much more than that. Belief in yourselves, perhaps, or perseverance in the face of adversity. Those are things to be proud of. That’s not the same as being proud.”
― Jack Campbell, Dauntless

“Released, I am a spear in the hands of the sun.”
― Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire