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.

Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp. Reading the right one at the right time can make all the difference.

Remember that your job as a practicing writer is to remember it's never going to be perfect on your first pass.

I have a smoke grenade in my room," I said. "What?" Megan asked. "How?" "I grew up working at a munitions plant," I said. "We mostly made rifles and handguns, but we worked with other factories. I got to pick up the occasional goody from the QC reject pile." "A smoke grenade is a goody?" Cody asked. I frowned. What did he mean? Of course it was. Who wouldn't want a smoke grenade when offered one?

Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.

I'm an amalgamation of what I've needed to be. Part scholar, part rebel, part nobleman, part Mistborn, and part soldier. Sometimes I don't even know myself. I had a devil of a time getting all those pieces to work together. And, just when I'm starting to get it figured out, the world up and ends on me.

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.