Quotes from Steven Erikson

What holds me to life, if not desire? What vaster power exists? With it, I swear, I feel I can defy the inevitable. Weapon and shield, companion and ally, enough to make the world back away, enough to surmount the highest walls and cross the deepest chasms. Desire, you stand in place of a lover's arms, and make your embrace such dark comfort.

Two sets of memory warred in the woman, and the war was getting worse.

Every body that darted within his reach he grasped, twisted, bent and broke.

The world outside is in flux—your love of ignorance is not worthy of these precipitous times. Attend this field, travelers, or remain lost at your peril.

Armour encumbers, restricts the body and soul within it. But it also protects. Blows are blunted Feelings lose their edge, leaving us to suffer naught but a plague of bruises, and after a time, bruises fade.

They take us at this moment, these unwavering men and women who presume to rule over us, and but point us in the direction of a weaker victim. This is their game, knowing or not, and as ever the assumption is that we'll never turn on our masters – so long as an enemy remains within reach of our blunted, frustrated fury. And

We don't even know where we are. What realm is this? What world lies beyond this forest? Cousin, we have nowhere else to go.' 'Nowhere, and anywhere. In the circumstances, Nimander, the former leads to the latter, like reaching a door everyone believes barred, locked tight, and lo, it opens wide at the touch. Nowhere and anywhere are states of mind.

Eddies of dry wind whipped tatters of cloth and reed paper about in dancing circles.

Then we're all restless, Withal, because at the very heart, none of us know where we came from. Or where we're going.

As the middle son, I of course represent the perfect balance. Wit, physical prowess and a multitude of talents to match my natural grace. When combined with my extraordinary ability to waste it all, you see, standing before you, the exquisite culmination.

Liars will lie, and continue to do so, even beyond being caught out. They will lie, and in time, such liars will convince themselves, will in all self-righteousness divest the liars of culpability. Until comes a time when one final lie is voiced, the one that can only be answered by rage, by cold murder, and on that day, blood

I can make you blind and senseless to them, but it'll be in your nature to fret about that strange emptiness. As if you're always on the edge of realization, but never able to reach it. It could drive you to distraction, Acquitor. Besides, the body remembers. You'll react to things you see, smell, taste, and you won't know why. It'll gnaw away at you. Your whole personality will change.

Maybe it all needs tearing apart, every one of those lies. And maybe brutality is what'll make us all equal. Still

the role of artists is to attend the funerals. They are the pall-bearers of failure, and every wonder they raise high in celebration harks back to a time already dead.

Cities and governments are but the flowering head of a plant whose stalk is the commonalty, and it is the commonalty whose roots are within the earth, drawing the necessary sustenance that maintains the flower.

Compassion is never enough. Nor is the hunger for vengeance. But, for now, for what awaits us, perhaps they will do. We are the Bonehunters, and sail to another name. Beyond Aren, beyond Raraku and beyond Y'Ghatan, we now cross the world to find the first name that will be truly our own. Shared by none other. We sail to give answer.

Some people just don't like being told what they can and can't do." "Some people use that line to rationalize being assholes

Expectation is the hoary curse of humanity.

Empuñar la espada es el último acto de un hombre desesperado.

She'd forgotten what love could do, as it threaded its roots through her entire soul, as it tugged and pulled at her thoughts, obsession ripening like seductive fruit. She felt only its life, thickening within her, claiming all she was.

Solitude could be an unwelcome place, but even the unwelcome could become habit.

Importance lies solely in the deeds done, the goals achieved. Time is preparation, nothing more. One prepares for as long as is required. To do this is to accept that planning begins at birth. You are born and before all else you are plunged into shadow, wrapped inside the holy ambivalence, there to suckle sweet sustenance.

I, Borduke of the 6th squad in the 9th Company of the 8th Legion, swear on the downy belly of the Queen of Dreams that the creature before me is a natural, unaltered Birdshit scorpion, and may my father's ghost remain in its tomb, since the inheritance was mine to lose anyway, right? Dead means you don't care any more, right? It had better, because if it doesn't, then I'm doomed to paternal haunting for the rest of my days.

The Warrens of Magic dwelt in the beyond. Find the gate and nudge it open a crack. What leaks out is yours to shape. With these words a young woman set out on the path to sorcery. Open yourself to the Warren that comes to you — that finds you. Draw forth its power – as much as your body and soul are capable of containing — but remember, when the body fails, the gate closes.