Elend shook his head. "We can survive this. But, the only way that will happen is if our people don't give up. They need leaders who laugh, leaders who feel that this fight can be won. So, this is what I ask of you. I don't care if you're an optimist or a pessimist—I don't care if secretly, you think we'll all be dead before the month ends. On the outside, I want to see you smiling. Do it in defiance, if you have to. If the end does come, I want this group to meet that end smiling. As the Survivor taught us.
Brandon SandersonSomehow, she had grown into a woman in between the fall of kings and collapse of worlds. Once she had been terrified of change. Then she had been terrified of losing Elend. Now her fears were more nebulous - worries of what would come after she was gone, worries of what would happen to the people of the empire if she failed.
Brandon SandersonFaith isn't about logic, son," Haddek said. "Perhaps that's your problem. You cannot 'disprove' the things you study, any more than we can prove to you that the Hero will save us. We simply must believe it, and accept the things Preservation has taught us.
Brandon SandersonI'm Galladon, from the sovereign realm of Duladel. I'm most recently from Elantris, land of sludge, insanity, and eternal perdition. Nice to meet you.
Brandon SandersonSpook smiled. "Elend is a forgetful scholar - twice as bad as Sazed ever was. He gets lost in his books and forgets about meeting he himself called. He only dresses with any sense of fashion because a Terriswoman bought him a new wardrobe. War has change him some, but on the inside, I think he's still just a dreamer caught in a world with too much violence.
Brandon SandersonBelief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret.
Brandon Sanderson