Quotes from Steven Erikson

I am here to arrest your manservant. The one named Bugg.' 'Oh, now really, his cooking isn't that bad.

Someone coughed nearby, from some huddle of stones, and then spoke. 'So, who are we fighting for again?' Fiddler could not place the voice. Nor the one that replied, 'Everyone.' A long pause, and then, 'No wonder we're losing.

Why, without a sense of humour, you are blind to so much in the world. To human nature. To the absurdity of so much that we say and do.

The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.' - Traveller

Beak, can you hold your own in what's to come?' A low murmuring reply: 'Yes sir. You'll see. Everyone will because you're all my friends and friends are important. The most important thing in the world. And I'll show you.

Shake your fist all you want but dead is dead.

In war everyone loses. This brutal truth can be seen in the eyes of every solider in every world.

Gods, I wish the world was full of passive women.He thought for a moment longer, then scowled. On second thoughts, what a nightmare that'd be. It's the job of a man to fan the spark into flames, not quench it...

Words are like coin—it pays to hoard." "Until you die on a bed of gold," Paran said.

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

Is there anything more worthless than excuses? -Emperor Kellanved

No-one chooses me. I do not give anyone that right. I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. All choices belong to me.

Very well, permit me, if you will, on this night. To break your hearts once more.

I love you still, but with your death I succumbed to a kind of infatuation. I convinced myself that what you and I had, so very briefly, was of far vaster and deeper import than it truly was. Of all the weapons we chose to 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.

Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light.

Name none of the fallen, for they stand in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.

He thinks I will hit him. Strike him, with a large stick. Foolish mule. Oh no, I am much more cunning. I will surprise him with kindness… until he grows calm and dispenses with all watchfulness, and then… ha! I shall punch him in the nose! Won't he be surprised! No mule can match wits with me. Oh yes, many have tried, and almost all have failed!

Courting is the art of growing like mould on the one you want.

It is an extraordinary act of courage,' said Tulas Shorn, 'to come to know a stranger's pain.

Never, dear gods. Never mess with mortals.

money's just an idea, it has power. Only it's not real power. Just the promise of power. But that promise is enough so long as everyone keeps pretending it's real. Stop pretending and it all falls apart.

It is not enough to wish for a better world for the children. It is not enough to shield them with ease and comfort. Lostara Yil, if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future's world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned.

Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you;

And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-pettalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.