Steven Erikson

"— all these Dark Lords intent on creating wastelands packed with enslaved victims ... for what?"

"“Heed the lesson there, son.” “What lesson?” “Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly.” “I want to be a soldier. A hero.” “You’ll grow out of it.”"

"“Since when is speaking the truth presumptuous?” “You are young, aren’t you?”"

"As for presumption, I honestly couldn’t care less. Truth can’t be danced around, not out here, not now, not ever again."

"Do I want you to talk to me, old friend? Do I need your reminders, your wry confirmation that faith is for fools?"

"“The Empress expects obedience of her servants, and demands loyalty.” “Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.”"

"I look at you and I see a man because that’s what men are capable of—I don’t hunt for excuses because I don’t like to think that that’s how nasty we can get. We look at Sorry and we see reflections of ourselves. Hood take it, if we don’t like what we see."

"The only death I fear is dying ignorant."

"Hunger for vengeance poisoned the soul."

"Your guest is mundane, a restless personage whose thoughts are thick with greed and treachery. A demon crouches on his shoulder, named Ambition."

"Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal’s hands. Such is the only end to immortality."

"“An item,” he said softly, his eyes on the disc, “that passes without provenance, pursued by many who thirst for its cold kiss, on which life and all that lay within life is often gambled. Alone, a beggar’s crown. In great numbers, a king’s folly. Weighted with ruin, yet blood washes from it beneath the lightest rain, and to the next no hint of its cost. It is as it is, says Kruppe, worthless but for those who insist otherwise.”"

"“A god intervened, Captain Paran. Returned the life to you. You might think it was on your behalf, but I’m afraid there wasn’t any altruism involved. Are you following me?” “I’m being used,” Paran stated flatly. She raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t bother you?” Paran shrugged and turned away. “It’s nothing new,” he muttered."

"Should you ever outrun the guilt within your past, Sorceress, you will have outrun your soul. When it finds you again it will kill you."

"Kallor said: “I walked this land when the T’lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?” “Yes,” said Caladan Brood, “you never learn.”"

"“What do you mean by a tyrant?” “One whose blood was poisoned by the ambition to rule over others.”"

"Lorn stared at Tool. “Was that an attempt at humor?” she asked. The T’lan Imass adjusted his helmet. “That depends on your mood, Adjunct.”"

"“Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?” The Imass shrugged before replying. “I think of futility, Adjunct.” “Do all Imass think about futility?” “No. Few think at all.” “Why is that?” The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her. “Because, Adjunct, it is futile.”"

"“The dead never interrupt,” said the mason, “they but arrive.”"

"He had nowhere to look for answers, and he was tired of asking questions."

"In the empty eyes of this child, he’d seen the withering of his own soul. The reflection had been unblemished, with no imperfections to challenge the truth of what he saw."

"“The mewling, petty acts,” he’d say, “of a short-lived and short-sighted species, Crokus, can do nothing to mar the Great Cycles of Life.”"

"Celebrating Gedderone’s Rite of Spring shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid the pressures of reality. It wasn’t just a harmless escape: it was a means of delaying the probable and making it inevitable."

"Nor would he recognize hope if it came to him. Too much a stranger, too long a ghost."

"Paran shook his head, his only surprise the realization that nothing surprised him anymore."

"Have any of these thoughts been my own? Look at me—my every move seems a desperate search for someone to blame, always someone else. I’ve made being a tool of a god an excuse, a justification for not thinking, for simply reacting. And others have died for it."

"Through the gamut of life we struggled for control, for a means to fashion the world around us, an eternal, hopeless hunt for the privilege of being able to predict the shape of our lives."

"Prediction had become a privilege now lost to her. Never mind the outside world, she could not even guess her own actions, or the course of her thoughts. Was this the true nature of emotion? she wondered. The great defier of logic, of control—the whims of being human. What lay ahead?"

"He who would dominate must learn early that those resisting his command should be destroyed."

"The power he commanded insisted upon subjects. Strength was ever relative, and he could not dominate without the company of the dominated."

"A title as meaningless as the woman bearing it. The Empress—just another face she’d seen somewhere before, a mask behind which someone hid from mortality. “No use hiding,” she whispered, frowning down at the dead leaves and branches around her. “No use.”"

"As with most unwitting servants of the gods, once the game was done so was the servant’s life."

"The tiger is humbled by memories of prey."

"'They've had a long time to think,' Paran murmured. 'Sometimes, that's all there's needed. The heart of wisdom is tolerance. I think.'"

"Children were meant to be gifts. The physical manifestation of love between a man and a woman. And for that love all manner of sacrifice could be borne."

"Memories belong in the soil, in stone, in wind. They are the land's unseen meaning, such that touches the soul of all who would look — truly look — upon it. Touches, in faintest whisper, old, almost shapeless echoes — to which a mortal life adds its own."

"To grieve is the gift of the living — a gift so many of our kin have long lost"

"Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course."

"There's little value in seeking to find reasons for why people do what they do, or feel the way they feel. Hatred is a most pernicious thing, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself." "With words."

"From the sun-drenched south slopes of Gris, where grow the finest grapes this world has seen. Is mine an informed opinion, you are wondering? Most assuredly so, lass, since I hold a majority interest in said vineyards —"

"With ever greater frequency they annihilate themselves, for success breeds contempt for those very qualities that purchased it."

"An army that waits is soon an army at war with itself."

"The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises."

"But now Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart."

"Not that freedom ensured happiness. Indeed, to be free was to live in absence. Of responsibilities, of loyalties, of the pressures that expectation imposed."

"Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal's shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched behind one now stretches before him."

"You leave me without hope," Brys said. "I am sorry for that. Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. For you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge."

"Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die."

"Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context."

"Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us."