When I do research, I cast my net very widely and then snatch what feels right out of that. Occasionally I'll read a specific book for a specific book, but usually I'm trying to increase my general understanding.

Somehow, 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.

Getting cut off from the knights' magic rock also required a period of exile from their giant glass mushroom. (Those of you in the Hushlands, I dare you to work that last sentence into a conversation. "By the way, Sally, did you know that getting cut from the knight's magic rock also requires a period of exile from their giant glass mushroom?")

He found insanity no excuse, however, for irrational behavior.

Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness.

The best liars are those who tell the truth most of the time.

You are inexperienced. So was I, once. So is every man. The measure of a person is not how much they have lived. . . It's in how they make us of what life has shown them.