While every new fantasy author is hailed as unique, new, and different, Brandon Sanderson's ELANTRIS does indeed provide an absorbing adventure in a unique, different, and well-thought-out fantasy world, with a few nifty twists as well.

Minds, like parachutes, function better when open, but, like fists, they strike harder when closed.

Without power, knowledge is useless. without knowledge, faith is tyranny. Without understanding, humanity is blind, and without all four, it is doomed.

If you do good because you expect to be rewarded, it is greed.

Deities are invented by fallible and finite beings in the hope and desire to create immortal perfection; unfortunately, such deities only reflect their creators and inspire their followers to similar imperfections.

Humans were eventually irrational creatures gifted with the power of rationality.

No society that places the individual above itself will survive; but neither will any society that places the individual below itself.