Quotes from Steven Erikson

Peace is the time of waiting for war. A time of preparation, or a time of wilful ignorance, blind, blinkered and prattling behind secure walls.

People who make up their minds about something never listen to advice - especially when it's to the contrary.

There had been times – he was almost certain – when he'd known unmitigated joy, but so faded were they to his recollection that he had begun to suspect the fictional conjuring of nostalgia. As with civilizations and their golden ages, so too with people: each individual ever longing for that golden past moment of true peace and wellness.

It wasn't too much, to take a frail figure into one's arms for those last moments of life. Better than a cot, or even a bed in a room filled with loved ones. Better, too, than an empty street in the cold rain. To die in someone's arms - could there be anything more forgiving? Every savage barbarian in the world knew the truth of this.

Knowledge is not enough. It never is. It's the capacity to do something with that knowledge. To do it perfectly. Absolute timing. With devastating consequences.

Now get going. You'll find a way of calm through." "And you, Mael?" "I'll drop in later. I've things for you to do, Withal. But for now," he faced inland, "I'm going to beat a god senseless.

It was the last time I stood beside my brother, the last time he held my flank and I his. For a time, then . . .'and his voice fell away, 'we were happy.' Though Torrent knew nothing of these Wars of Shadow, nor the other players involved, he could not but hear the sorrow in Ruin's voice, and it stung him deep inside. Fucking regrets.

People in great need were quick to find blame in themselves, quick to assume the burden of guilt for things they in truth had no control over and could not hope to change.

Glass is sand and sand is glass! The ant dancing blind as blind ants do on the lip of the rim and the rim of the lip. White in the night and grey in the day- smiling spider she never smiles but smile she does though the ant never sees, blind as it is- and now was!

I don't like being retired. It's like announcing an end to your worth, whatever that worth was, and the longer you go on, the more you realize that that worth wasn't worth anything like you once thought it was, and that just makes it worse.

the soul is never as strong as it believes itself, nor ever as weak as it fears.

You`re learning, friend.` `The lessons of civilization.` `Just so. 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 weed, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself.` `With words.` `Indeedm with words. Form an opinion, say it ofren enough and pretty soon everyone`s saying it right back at you, and then it becomes a conviction, fed by unreasoning anger and defended with a fight to the death.

Stones make no splash on a frozen lake.

Of all the weapons we turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one's own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions.

The act of taking offence becomes a weapon, and its wielder feels empowered by the false indignation.

Isolation hones the inner voice, the unspoken dialogue between the selves – and surely there are many selves within each of us. Some uglier than others.' There

the more intelligent and perceptive the individual, the less happy they generally are. The cost of seeing things as they are, I expect.

Beware of shadows bearing gifts.

Lost ages are neither more nor less profound than the one we live in right now.

Speak truth, grow still, until the water is clear between us.

There exists an exchange of trust between the ruler and the ruled. Abuse that from either direction and all mutual agreements are nullified.

There's a sweet promise to giving up, but realizing that demands a journey. One of spirit. You can't walk to Hood's Gate, you find it before you when the fog clears.

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.

Death and dying makes us into children once again, in truth, one last time, there in our final wailing cries. More than one philosopher has claimed that we ever remain children, far beneath the indurated layers that make up the armour of adulthood.