Quotes from Steven Erikson

You may believe that civilization deafens us with tens of thousands of voices, but listen well to that clamour, for with each renewed burst so disparate and myriad, an ancient force awakens, drawing each noise ever closer, until the chorus forms but two sides, each battling the other. The bloody lines are drawn, fought in the turning away of faces, in the stoppering of ears, the cold denial, and all discourse, at the last, is revealed as futile and worthless.

Sacrifice must be weighed by the pain of what is surrendered, and this alone was the true measure of a virtue's worth.

Iskaral Pust's warbling battle cry was somewhat strangled as he leaned forward, perched high in the stirrups, hands reaching like a raptor's talons, and the mule reluctantly stumped forward. Kruppe watched this agonizingly slow charge. He sighed. 'Really now. It comes to this? So be it.' And he kicked his war-mule into motion. The beasts closed, step by step. By step.

The more you dream of one particular and pleasing thing, Ralata, the quicker it palls. The edges get worn down, the lustre fades. To leave such obsessions behind, dream of them often.

Trull Sengar kills, and kills, and then, when it is done and he kneels in the blood of the kin he has slain, he weeps.

Lying with lovers also belonged to night, and that made sense, for it was in the midst of true darkness that the first fire of life was born, flickering awake to drive back the unchanging absence of light. To lie with a lover was to celebrate the creation of fire. From this in the flesh to the world beyond.

I am the Bearer of Fener's grief,' he intoned in a whisper. 'I am my vow incarnate. This, and in all that follows. We are not yet done here. I am not yet done. Behold, I yield to nothing.

They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation. None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve. To face death is to stand alone.

In success we shall find seeds of despair

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.

We are not born innocent, simply unmeasured...Until the outside is inflicted on the inside, then the brutal war begins. We are not born to compassion either - large wide eyes and sweet demeanor notwithstanding.

The councilman staggered to one side, his sword clanging on the stones as he clutched at the gushing wound in his neck.

Is love so paltry a thing, to be plucked and dropped to the ground at the first breath of contempt?

upon what has gone before, and that one must be mindful of that at every moment, with every choice made and about to be made.

To be alone is to be ill, Warlord, not just spiritually, but physically as well.

If by that you mean that there is no progress, that even the notion of progress is a delusion, and that history is nothing more than a host of lessons nobody wants to pay attention to, then yes, there is no point. Not in writing it down, not in teaching it.

We have witnessed life's myriad struggles. From the lone creature suffering its last moments to thousands dying in a bleak season. And what have we learned? Only that life is its own purpose. And that, where there is life, there shall be suffering. Has it any meaning? Is existence reason enough?

but the ground rumbled with a growing, urgent thunder.

Young? He'd hear his own harsh, pained laugh. Oh, no, not this lass. She's old. She walked under a blood-red moon in the dawn of time, did this one. Her face is the face of all that cannot be fathomed, and she's looking you in the eye, Whiskeyjack, and you'll never know what she's thinking.

What the soul can house, flesh cannot fathom.

We faced a choice then,' Haut went on. 'To resume our onward journey, or to turn round, to discover the blessing that is walking back the way we came. In our standing in one place, we argued for centuries, until finally, in our mutual and well-deserved disgust, we each chose our own paths.' 'And so ended your civilization.' 'It was never much of one to begin with. But then, few are.

We are all gripped in madness. I have never seen the like nor heard of such a thing—gods, what we have become…

Ruthan Gudd drew off his gambeson and paused to luxuriate in the sudden escape from unbearable heat as his sweat-slicked skin cooled. 'Well,' said Skanarow from her cot, 'that woke me up.' 'My godlike physique?' 'The smell, Ruthan.

The air swirled into darkness around Paran. He blinked, saw the trees of the estate garden rising before him.