Quotes from Steven Erikson

Too many regrets. Lost chances—and with each one passing the less human we all became, and the deeper into the nightmare of power we all sank.

Don't worry. I am like most people. I can keep my eyes and still see nothing.

As if the only genuine gestures were the small ones, the ones devoid of an audience. As if true honesty belonged to solitude, since to be witnessed was to perform, and performance was inherently false since it invited expectation.

None could guess my confusion, my host of deluded illusions and elusive delusions! A mantle of marble hiding a crumbling core of sandstone. See how they stare at me, wondering, all wondering, at my secret wellspring of wisdom...' Let's kill him,' Crokus muttered, 'if only to put him out of our misery.

Where is the library?" "Turn right, proceed thirty-four paces, turn right again, twelve paces, then through door on the right, thirty-five paces, through archway on right another eleven paces, turn right one last time, fifteen paces, enter the door on the right." Mappo stared at Iskaral Pust. The High Priest shifted nervously. "Or," the Trell said, eyes narrowed, "turn left, nineteen paces." "Aye," Iskaral muttered.

When one loves all things of the world, when one has that gift of joy, it is not the armour against grief that you might think it to be. Such a person stands balanced on the edge of sadness – there is no other way for it, because to love as he does is to see clearly.

It is one thing to lead by example with half a dozen soldiers at your back. It is wholly another with ten thousand.

I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast.

The courage of husbands is directly proportionate to the proximity of the wife.

We are not simple creatures. You dream that with memories will come knowledge, and from knowledge, understanding. But for every answer you find, a thousand new questions arise. All that we are has lead us to where we are, but tells us little of where we're going. Memories are a weight you can never shrug off.

The Empress expects obedience of her servants, and demands loyalty.' 'Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.

The heart is neither given nor stolen. The heart surrenders.

All those bickering worshippers, each one convinced their version is the right one. Imagine getting prayers from ten million believers, not one of them believing the same thing as the one kneeling beside him or her. Imagine all those Holy Books, not one of them agreeing on anything, yet all of them purporting to be the word of that one god. Imagine two armies annihilating each other, both in that god's name. Who wouldn't be driven mad by that?

I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.

Innocence is only a virtue, lass, when it is temporary. You must pass from it to look back and recognize its unsullied purity. To remain innocent is to twist beneath invisible and unfathomable forces all your life, until one day you realize that you no longer recognize yourself, and it comes to you that innocence was a curse that had shackled you, stunted you, defeated your every expression of living.

This ain't your fight,' he said to the distant creature. 'Fucking dragon.

Power is violence, its promise, its deed. Power cares nothing for reason, nothing for justice, nothing for compassion. It is, in fact, the singular abnegation of these things – once the cloak of deceits is stripped away, this one truth is revealed.

History meant nothing, because the only continuity was human stupidity.

Now, invite me in, before I lose my temperature.' 'Temper, you mean.' 'No, temperature. It's getting chilly.

Fucking dragons

The gods have been kicking us around for a long time. When do we say enough?' 'And in their absence, High Fist, will we manage things any better?' 'No,' Paran said, walking past him 'but at least then we won't have the option of blaming someone else.

The first law of the multitude is conformity. Civilization is the mechanism of controlling and maintaining that multitude. 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.

When I began this journey, I was young. I believed in one thing. I believed in glory. I know now, 'Siballe, that glory is nothing. Nothing. This is what I now understand.' 'What else do you now understand, Karsa Orlong?' 'Not much. Just one other thing. The same cannot be said for mercy.

Desires should never be justified,' Tehol said, wagging a finger. 'All you end up doing is illuminating the hidden reasons by virtue of their obvious absence.