Quotes from Steven Erikson

And at that instant, Ivis, so brightly painted in triumph, does the world freeze? Does time itself cease, nothing crawling on; not a single moment following in its usual tumble? But what world offers this impossibility? Only the one begat in a mind, and then raised in chains, never to be set free. The fashioning of nostalgia, my friend, imprisons us.

We lie about our past to make peace with the present. If we accepted the truth of our history, we would find no peace – our consciences would not permit it. Nor would our rage.

The Twins stood on their tower as the slaughter began below and the knuckles bouncing wild to their delight, now turned sudden sudden and sour and this game they played – the mortals bleeding and crying in the dark – they saw it turn and the game they played tossed to a new wind, a gale not their own – and so the Twins were played, oh how they were played. Slayer's Moon Vatan Urot

we fight every battle with our imaginations: the battles within, the battles in the world beyond. This is the truth of command, and a warrior must learn command, of oneself and of others. It

Never bargain with a man who has nothing to lose.

The dead are ever refashioned, for they have no defence against those who would use or abuse them – who they were, what their deeds meant.

I have my throne, I have my sword, I have an empire. But I have . . . no-one.

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 civilization. Thus, a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy.

A chill crept over Duiker. Even wheeled hospitals carried with them that pervasive atmosphere of fear, the sounds of defiance and the silence of surrender. Mortality's many comforting layers had been stripped away, revealing wracked bones, a sudden comprehension of death that throbbed like an exposed nerve.

What I, Karsa Orlong, shall shape, you cannot imagine. No one can.

Indolence takes many forms, but it comes to every civilization that has outlived its will. You know that as well as I. In this case it was an indolence characterized by a pursuit of knowledge, a frenzied search for answers to everything, no matter the value of such answers.

The world vanished inside a shrieking, whirling ochre haze. Stones and gravel pelted them, drawing flinches from the stallion and grunts of pain from Kalam.

Kneels? Falters? Look to the night sky, foolish man, and gauge the victor in the contest between Dark and Light.

And so we weep for the fallen. We weep for those yet to fall, and in war the screams are loud and harsh and in peace the wail is so drawn-out we tell ourselves we hear nothing.

You are young,' said Rise. 'There is much for you to bear, but the gift of youth means you scarcely feel its weight. It distresses me to think that you are growing old before your time.

In a journey through the wastes, I found a god kneeling as it pushed its hands into the sand again and again, each time lifting them up to watch the lifeless grains stream down. Dismounting from my weary horse, I walked to stand before this apparition and its dusty hands and watched for a time the cycles of their motion when at last up it looked, eyes beseeching. 'Where,' asked this god, 'are my children?

My faith in the gods is this: they are indifferent to my suffering.

Without a sense of humor, you are blind to so much in this world. To human nature. To the absurdity of so much that we say and do.

Quiet! My wife!' 'Is she sleeping?' 'Sleeping? She never sleeps! No, you fool, she hunts !' 'Hunts? What does she hunt?' 'Not what. Who. She hunts for me, of course. But has she found me? No! We've not seen each other for months! Hee he! It's a perfect marriage. I've never been happier. You should try it.

Why not? How has her infamous, unceasing sorrow for the plight of mortals done them any good, any at all, Hurlochel? It's easy to weep when staying far away, doing nothing. When you take credit for every survivor out there – those whose own spirits fought the battle, whose own spirits refused to yield to Hood's embrace.

Why can't I have normal friends?' Stonny demanded. 'Ones without tiger stripes and cat eyes? Ones without a hundred thousand souls riding their backs? Here comes a rider from that other lagging company – maybe he's normal! Hood knows, he's dressed like a farmer and looks inbred enough to manage only simple sentences. A perfect man! Hey! You! No, what are you hesitating for? Come to us, then! Please!

Only two kinds of people die in battle, Fiddler had once said, fools and the unlucky.

In natural justice, Arathan, the weak cannot hide, unless we grant them the privilege. And understand, it is ever a privilege, for wich the weak should be eternally grateful. At any given moment, should the strong will it, they can swing a sword and end the life of the weak. And that will be today's lesson. Forbearance.

If we are to live, we must take risks. Else our lives become deaths in all but name.