Quotes from Steven Erikson

Is the universe holographic? Probably. Get microscopic enough and you start seeing pixels. I don't know about you, but that makes me laugh. Until I think about how easy it is to hack a program. Any program.

he ordered, eyes lingering on the Tiste Andii.

Who in their dreams is not omnipotent? If in sleep I grow wings and fly high above the land, it does not mean I will awaken cloaked in feathers. We are gods in our dreams. Disaster strikes when we come to believe the same is true in our real lives.

None of these visions of creation did more than serve the vanity of those holding them. As if all was made for them; for their eyes to witness, for their wonder to behold. Rint did not believe it. The past had no beginning. Something always existed before, no matter how far back one reached.

Look upon him who does not waver from his cause, no matter how insipid and ultimately irrelevant, and you shall find in him the meaning of dull-witted. The bhok'aral could have stared into my eyes forever, for there was no intelligence behind them. Behind his eyes, I mean. It was proof of my superiority that I found distraction elsewhere.

She was glad she'd missed the river of corpses that must have filled the city streets during the initial phase of clean-up - wagon after wagon groaning beneath the weight of crushed bodies, white flesh seared by fire and slashed by sword, rat-gnawed and raven-pecked - men, women, and children.

The night draws to an end, the dream dims in the pale silver of awakening. Kruppe ceases, weary beyond reason. Sweat drips down the length of his ratty beard, his latest affectation. A bard sits, head bowed, and in a short time he will say thank you. But for now he must remain silent, and as for the other things he would say, they are between him and Kruppe and none other. Fisher sits, head bowed. While an Elder God weeps. The tale is spun. Spun out. Dance by limb, dance by word. Witness!

In my village no one is a stranger - and this is what civilization has turned it's back on. One day, Munug, I will make a world of villages, adn the age of cities will be over. And slavery will be dead, and there shall be no chains - tell your god. Tonight, I am his knight.' - Karsa Orlong.

The laws are not what they seem. Order is an illusion. It hides its lies in your very eyes, deceiving all they see. Because to see is to change that which is seen. No, none of us will ever see true. We cannot. It is impossible. I give you a life without answers, my children.

And out there, in that unending cavalcade of danger, I intend to enjoy myself.

He had once believed that all of existence was under the benign control of a caring omnipotence, after all. And crickets exist to sing us to sleep, too. There was no telling what other foolishness might have crept into his young, naive brain all those millennia ago. No longer, of course. Things end. Species die out. Faith in anything else was a conceit, the product of unchained ego, the curse of supreme self-importance.

Then darkness swept in around him and he knew no more.

You'll not have me, Lord, because you can't.

I'd much rather you assumed for yourself a higher rank than mere menial labourer for the duration of this great adventure.' He paused. 'You wish me to strike heroic poses against the sunset, Lady Envy?' 'Indeed!

Soldiers have no imagination, meaning they're capable of vast surprises

How many great compassions arose from a dark source? A private place of secret failings?

It seems, captain, that as her power grows, her tolerance diminishes. They are like lodestones, pushing each other away. Does power not grant immunity? Does power not strengthen the armour; does power not find assurance in itself? Can it be that those who hold the most power also know the greatest fear?

It is the legacy of most intelligent beings to revel in slaughter for a time,' Haut replied. 'In this we play at being gods. In this, we lie to ourselves with delusions of omnipotence. There is but one measure to the wisdom of a people, and that is the staying hand. Fail in restraint and murder thrives in your eyes, and all your claims to civilization ring hollow.

He is brave, this one, and not given to complaint no matter the hardship. But he weeps for dying horses.

Anarchists live in fear and long for death, because they despair of seeing in others the very virtues they lack in themselves. In this manner, they take pleasure in sowing destruction, if only to match their inner landscape of ruin.

The body will totter past the dead husk of its soul, sometimes for days, sometimes for years.

Bless you, that you not be taken. Bless you, that you begin in your time and that you end in its fullness. Bless you, in the name of the Redeemer, in my name, against the cruel harvesters of the soul, the takers of life. Bless you, that your life and each life shall be as it is written, for peace is born of completion. - Itkovian

They didn't shelter their own, didn't feed their own, didn't heal their own, and yet, in the midst of all this inhumanity, they held themselves as the pinnacle of human civilization.

Absence of doubt? No, nothing so egotistic as that. Nimander has plenty of doubts, so many that he's lost his fear of them. He accepts them as easily as anything else. Is that the secret? Is that the very definition of greatness?