Steven Erikson

"If one could always choose the right question, then every answer could be as obvious."

""What war is this?" "A pointless one." "They are all pointless Denier. Subjugation and defeat breed resentment and hatred, and such things cannot be bribed away." "Unless the spirit of the defeated is crushed," Trull said."

"Indeed Bugg. is it because, do you think, at the human core, we are naught but liars and cheats?" "Probably." "With no hope of ever overcoming our instinctive nastiness?" "Hard to say. How have we done so far?"

"You cannot fight unreason, and as these dead multitudes will tell you — are telling you right now — certitude is the enemy."

"Keep a watch out, fools! There are things out there and you know what happens when things arrive!"

"I mean the only thing us dead soldiers got in common is that none of us was good enough or lucky enough to survive the fight. We're a host of failures."

"Oh," the figure settled back down, "those reasons. Well, yes. Clever, even. But still profoundly stupid."

"The world, Ahlrada Ahn knew, was indifferent to the necessity of preservation. Of histories, of stories layered with meaning and import. It cared nothing for what was forgotten, for memory and knowledge had never been able to halt the endless repetition of wilful stupidity that so bound peoples and civilizations."

"We are contrary creatures, us humans, but that isn't something we need be afraid of, or even much troubled by. And if you make a list of those people who worship consistency, you'll find they're one and all tyrants or would-be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or a wife, or some cowering child. Never fear contradiction, Cutter, it is the very heart of diversity."

"Compassion existed when and only when one could step outside oneself, to suddenly see the bars from inside the cage."

"So much had changed inside him. He was no believer in causes, not any more. Certainty was an illusion, a lie. Fanaticism was poison in the soul, and the first victim in its inexorable, ever-growing list was compassion. Who could speak of freedom, when one's soul was bound in chains?"

"Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops whither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing."

"A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilisation. Thus a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy."

"Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgement, the weapon you wield delivers — and let us not be coy here — naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause."

"'For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?' 'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.' 'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp, 'that is precisely the point. That's their value — their ability to adapt -' 'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they see how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.'"

"Sometimes, mortals did indeed forget. Sometimes, mortals needed ... reminding."

"Do mortal fools still measure the increments leading to their deaths, wagering pleasures against costs, persisting in the delusion that deeds have value, that the world and all the gods sit in judgment over every decision made or not made?"

"History meant nothing, because the only continuity was human stupidity. Oh, there were moments of greatness, of bright deeds, but how long did the light of such glory last? From one breath to the next, aye, and no more than that. No more than that. As for the rest, kick through the bones and wreckage for they are what remain, what lasts until all turn to dust."

"Killers among your kind, among my kind, are just that — the savagery of beasts mated with intelligence, or what passes for intelligence. They dwell in a murky world, sir, confuse and fearful, stained dark with envy and malice. And in the end, they die as they lived. Frightened and alone, with every memory of power revealed as illusion, as farce."

"The righteous will claim sole domain on judgment. The righteous are the first to make hands into fists, the first to shout down dissenters, the first to bully others into compliance."

"Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?"

"When undeniable crime had been committed, justification was the act of a coward. And it was cowardice that permitted such crimes in the first place. No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no. The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes."

"She walked alongside him, saying nothing. Thinking. At last, she sighed. 'It is said that only one's will can fight against chaos, that no other weapons are possible.'"

"'Necessity, now there's a word to feed every outrage on decency.'"

"‘I can see your reasons, my love. But won’t you get thirsty?’ — Inscription found beneath capstone of household well, Lakefront District, Darujhistan"

"'Just so,' agreed the King. 'So accept the escort, Adjunct, or I shall hold my breath until I achieve a most royal shade of purple.'"

"'Now, it's just occurred to me that we're missing something crucial. Ah, yes, an artist! Bugg, have we a court artist? We need an artist! Find us an artist! Nobody move!'"

"Reconciliation does not demand that one side surrender to the other. The simple, mutual recognition that mistakes were made is in itself a closing of the divide."

"No, do not look at me that way, you of smooth and subtle thought, you give your sympathy too quickly and therein hide your belief in your own superiority. I do not deny your cleverness, but I question your compassion."

"We are sickened by the unknown, but knowledge can prove poisonous."

"If dreams of flying are the last hope of freedom, I will pray for wings with my last breath."

"'If by our sacrifice — yours and mine,' said Onos T'oolan, 'the pain of one life can be ended; if, by our deaths, this one can be guided home ... we will judge this a worthy cause.'"

"'But we're different from hawks and wolves, Ville. We can actually figure out the consequences of what we do, and that makes us ... oh, I don't know the word ...'"

"'... In elegant remoteness, she arrives like a work of high art, and you may well desire to edge ever closer, seeking flaws in the maker's hand, but the closer you get, the more she blurs before your eyes.'"

"'Wisdom did not belong to mortals, and those whom others called wise were only those who, through grim experience, had touched the very edges of unwelcome truths. For the wise, even joy was tinged with sorrow. No, the world made its demands upon mortals and they were immediate ones, pressingly, ferociously so, and even knowing a reasonable course was not enough to alter a mad plunge into disaster.'"

"'Words were no gift, said Haut. They were tangled nets snaring all who ventured into their midst, until an entire people could hang helpless, choking on their own arguments, even as dissolution closed in on all sides."

"'Peace did not serve order; order served peace, and when order became godlike, sacrosant and inviolate, then the peace thus won became a prison, and those who sought their freedom became enemies to order, and in the elimination of such enemies, peace was lost.'"

"'What worth peace when it was maintained by threat?"

"'I think I understand. Before there can be disdain, there must be pride."

"'This swirl of stars,' Draconus suddenly said, 'marks the plunge of light into darkness. These stars, they are distant suns, shihing their light down upon distant, unknown worlds. Worlds, perhaps, little different from this one. Or vastly different. It hardly matters. Each star swirls its path towards the centre, and at that centre is death - the death of light, the death of time itself.'"

"'Do not let the title of scholar, or poet, or lord, intimidate you overmuch. More importantly, do not delude yourself into imagining that such men and women are loftier, or somehow cleverer or purer of intgrity or ideal than you or the other commoner. We live in a world of facades, but the grins behind them are all wretched.'"

"'Then, does everyone lives in fear?'"

"'Wealth,' they said, 'is a false measure. Honour cannot be hoarded. Integrity cannot adorn a room. There is no courage in gold. Only fools build a fortress of wealth. Only fools would live in it and imagine themselves safe.'"

"Art is the language of the tormented, but the world is blind to that, for ever blind."

"T'riss sat down opposite the Warden, her expression thoughtful. 'Is civilisation nothing but an illusion, then?'"

"'It is the legacy of most intelligent beings to revel in slaughter for a time,' Haut replied. 'In this we play at being gods. In this, we lie to ourselves with delusions of omnipotence. There is but one measure to the wisdom of a people, and that is the staying hand. Fail in restraint and murder thrives in your eyes, and all your claims to civilization ring hollow.'"