Quotes from Steven Erikson

By the Lady's never-sucked teats!" "Elas Sil!" "Oh shut up! I'm a woman, I can curse about things like that. Wait, it's not as dark up ahead. Come on, and hasn't that baby of yours been asleep a long time? You sure it's not dead?" "Wel, it peed on me halfway down that last corridor, and last I looked it was smiling." "Huh. It ever amazes me women get talked into motherhood.

the natural force, the core of the struggle to exist is the desire to not just survive, but thrive. And to thrive is to feed on victims, ever more victims...

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.

War needs no gods, only mortal contestants, two enemies and whatever reasons they invent in order to justify killing each other.

Serious people never stopped waging their war on joy and pleasure, and they were both relentless and tireless.

I've never believed in American skies, but I've always beleived in America.

The wine is gone. Only sour wine fumes remain. Drunkenness pretends to resolution.

It was compassion. The tragic kind of compassion, the kind that sacrifices itself and sees that sacrifice as the only choice and thus no choice at all, one that must be accepted without hesitation.

In the cruel game of politics, we are brought low by the child within each of us, until every howl is deafening in its abject stupidity, and none can hear the wails of the suffering

The poet who glories in war is a spinner of lies. The poet who delights in visceral detail, for the ... purpose of feeding that lust for blood, has all the depth of a puddle of piss....

When the time for action comes, all doubts must be discarded.

And now, Picker and the others are watching Mallet. Every moment, someone's hovering close. The healer might try to fall on his knife at any time … given the chance. Ah, Mallet, he kept pushing you away. 'Another time, I've too much on my mind right now. Nothing more than a dull ache. When this is done, we'll get to it, then.' It wasn't your fault, Mallet. Soldiers die.

Are there imbrules here? Stantars? Luthuras – are there luthuras here? Scaly, long grasping tails, eyes like the eyes of purlith bats-' 'No,' Apsalar said. 'None of those creatures.' She frowned. 'Those you have mentioned are of Starvald Demelain.' A momentary silence from the two ghosts, then Curdle snaked along the top of the wall until its eerie face was opposite Apsalar. 'Really? Now, that's a peculiar coincidence-

She watched with morbid fascination as they gathered at the stumps at the ends of the man's wrists, the old scar tissue the only place on him unclaimed by Fener, but the paths the sprites took to those stumps touched not a single tattooed line. The flies dance a dance of avoidance - but for all that, they were eager to dance.

the all too human need to conjure symbolic meaning from meaningless events.

It may be that in the belief of the possibility of redemption, people willingly do wrong. Redemption waits, like a side door, there in whatever court of judgement we eventually find ourselves. Not even the payment of a fine is demanded, simply the empty negotiation that absolves responsibility.

And we're not talking mild snoring, either. Imagine being chained to the floor of a cave, with the tide crashing in, louder, louder, louder—

So I did, my young lover. 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.

To love in absence is to float on ever still waters. No sudden currents, no treacherous tides, no possibility of drowning.

I greet you as guests and so will not crush the life from you and devour your souls with peals of laughter. No, instead, I will make some tea.' Nimander

Thus,' he added with a sorrowful smile, 'the opening of my heart proves, once more, a curse. Claiming those I care for, by virtue of that very emotion. Would that I had learned my lesson long ago

I took the stone bowl in both hands and poured out my time onto the ground drowning hapless insects feeding the weeds until the sun stood looking down and stole the stain. Seeing in the vessel's cup a thousand cracks a thousand cracks I looked back the way I came and saw a trail green with memories lost whoever made this bowl was a fool but the greater he who carried it. Stone

I would say, most of the time, yes. Fear that our opinions might be challenged. Fear that our way of seeing things might be called ignorant, self-serving, or indeed evil. Fear for our persons. Fear for our future, our fate. Our moment of death. Fear of failing in all that we set out to achieve. Fear of being forgotten.

Is possession a virtue? Is a lifetime of working for some rich toad a virtue? Is loyal employment in some merchant house a virtue? Loyal to what? To whom? Oh, have they paid for that loyalty with a hundred docks a week? Like any other commodity? But then, which version is truer – the virtue of self-serving acquisitiveness or the virtue of loyalty to one's employer? Are