Quotes from Steven Erikson

There were many kinds of freedom, and the most precious ones were secret.

What did he see, I wonder? What avenue opened before him? A sudden way through, an escape from all the torment? Or was it just the venal act of a selfish child, wanting to somehow punish the woman standing before him … just passing the guilt along, as cowards will do. Well

She eyed him steadily, wondering at his sudden . . . humanity. Maybe dying did away with the usual games, the pretenses of the living dance.

Accord dissolves but blame is impossible to assign, leading to malaise, confusion and a vacuous resentment.

The Pannion Domin … why are we sparing a mole's ass for some upstart zealots? These things burn out. Every time. They implode. The scroll scribblers take over – they always do – and start arguing obscure details of the faith. Sects form. Civil war erupts, and there it is, just one more dead flower trampled on history's endless road.

The wounded will wound / and every hurt is remembered.

Victory tastes sweetest in the absence of haunting memories, Bult. Savor it.

There is little good in people. Little good" [...] "Yet it can be found. All the more precious for its rarity

The hand of vengeance stayed cold only so long. Any soul possessing a shred of humanity could not help but see the reality behind cruel deliverance, no matter how justified it might have at first seemed. Faces blank in death. Bodies twisted in postures no-one unbroken could achieve. Destroyed lives. Vengeance yielded a mirror to every atrocity, where notions of right and wrong blurred and lost all relevance.

Worse, this vast sense of loss … without the ability to trust – anyone. Without that, what do I see in the life awaiting me? Naught but solitude, and thus, nothing of value.

Importance lies solely in the deeds done, the goals achieved. Time is preparation, nothing more. One prepares for as long as is required.

Aye, Master. Only, how do we know where that dhenrabi might take us?" "Oh, we know that, most certainly. Why, the dhenrabi breeding beds, of course." "Oh.

Darkness was anathema to shadows.

Then we're dead all that much sooner. So it goes.

Never be too easy with the knowledge you possess. Words are like coin—it pays to hoard." "Until you die on a bed of gold," Paran said.

What the soul can house, flesh cannot fathom. - The Reve of Fener - Imarak, First Destriant – MoI 657

I am not empty inside. I am not at peace.' The word seemed to startle him. 'Peace? I spoke not of peace. In absence, Korya, there is yearning.' His strange eyes focused on her. 'Do you not so yearn?

Sometimes a mage would just up and hug him, then walk away. Once, a wizard he was talking to just started crying. That had frightened Beak.

The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.

I will answer in kind. No act is final. Another inevitably awaits.

At some point, no matter how repressive the regime, the citizenry will come to comprehend the vast power in their hands. The destitute, the Indebted, the beleaguered middle classes; in short, the myriad victims. Control was sleight of hand trickery, and against a hundred thousand defiant citizens, it stood no real chance.

My arms wrapped about little Jala, little sister, hot with fever but the fire grew too hot, and so, in my arms, her flesh cooled to dawn-stone, mother keening—Jala was the ember now lifeless, and from that day, in mother's eyes, I became naught but its bed of ash.

TA truly successful leader is a reluctant leader. Not one whose every word is greeted with frenzied cheering either - after all what happens to the mind of such a leader, after such scenes are repeated again and again? A growing certainty, a belief in one's own infallibility, and onward goes the march into disaster. No, Bugg I won't have anyone kissing my feet ????, ' I'm relieved to hear that master, since those feet have not known soap in a long time'.

Stop talking like a sailor, Adjutant Stormy,' Nok said. A smile amidst the red, bristling beard. 'Ain't no Adjutant any more, Admiral.' Thin brows rose, and Nok said, 'Title alone gifts the bearer with intelligence?' Stormy nodded. 'That it does, sir. Which is why Gesler's a sergeant and I'm a corporal. We get stupider every year that passes.' 'And