#pg 318

Things have characters. Some philosophers will not budge from the thesis that the characters of particular things are particulars rather than universals. That seems an untenable extreme view. Whitehead went all the way in the opposite direction. In his metaphysics the actual world is a process composed of individual processes; but he insists that none of these, nor any group of them, nor any element in any one of them, nor anything in the world, could be a definite entity unless it exemplified a form of definiteness which bears in itself no temporal limitation whatsoever. To Whitehead this is obvious, and probably always appeared obvious. ... We must remember that Whitehead's eternal objects are "ideal entities," and "in themselves not actual," but "such that they are exemplified in everything that is actual, according to some proportion of relevance" (RM III iii). We must not think of them as things which do something in the world; Whitehead's position is the sound one that eternal objects are abstract entities, and only actual entities act. ...  If every form of definiteness is eternal, it must be because each always has some relevance to whatever is happening, no matter how far that happening, or the whole universe in that stage of its history, may be from realizing this form. That which is relevant to a process but not certain to be realized in it must be called a potential for it. Now the metaphysician has not only to note that there are actual things and that they have characters; his formulations must describe the general way in which, in arising, they get their characters. This means using some notion of potentiality. Those who refuse to do this are abstracting from ongoing time--looking at the universe (either in their approach to metaphysics or at some point in their construction) as if it were a completed whole, spread out before them. They can then announce that it consists of the totality of actual things and nothing else; that is "what there is." But the universe we face is not like that. It has a tomorrow. Thus we need the notion that today contains potentialities (one or many) for tomorrow.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Kelsier said. “My eyesight... it isn’t very good, you know. I can barely see my own hands in front of my face.” ‘Thanks for the tip, Hoid.’

Lord Straff Venture, leader of House Venture, was a domineering man, even for a nobleman.

im gonna hope its lemonade