Quotes from Steven Erikson

indeed no virtue of pragmatism was possible in matters of the soul, and might even prove anathema to the very notion of the sacred.

His old name was on the toll of the fallen, after all, and beside it was Blackdog Wood, 1159 Burn's Sleep.

They'll die for you now. I know, you don't do it on purpose. There's nothing calculated when you're being human, old friend. That's what makes you so deadly.

You – you . . .' Her words were drowned out in a flood of pain rising up within her, an anguish more thorough in shattering her than anything she'd yet suffered. She staggered back a step. Baudin's small, flat eyes held steady on her. Heboric cleared his throat. 'We'd best hurry.

He would have liked to call the man he had been a stranger now, but the world had a way of spinning unnoticed, until what he'd thought he'd turned his back on suddenly faced him again.

It is not enough to wish for a better world for the children. It is not enough to shield them with ease and comfort. Lostara Yil, if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future's world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned.

There is power in nature,' Ilgast replied, 'and what is often forgotten is that nature lies within us as much as it does out there, amidst high grasses or shoreline. To heal is to draw across the divide; that and nothing more.

The panic that had filled him was subsiding, perhaps having burned itself out.

When it is all one can do to simply hold on, then to suffer is to weather a deluge no god can ease

Caladan Brood, the menhired one, winter-bearing, barrowed and sorrowless . . ." Calot picked up the next lines.   ". . . in a tomb bereaved of words, and in his hands that have crushed anvils—" Tattersail continued, "the hammer of his song— he lives asleep, so give silent warning to all—wake him not.

What is given away for free comes back wounded. Value is not always shared and some hands are rougher than others.

Judgement, the coarse, thorn-studded brambles of retribution, they could snag an entire people, and as the blood streamed down each body was lifted higher, lifted from the ground. The vicious snare carried them into the righteous sky. Reason could not reach that high, and in the heavens madness spun untamed.

Minds that discovered, faint as flickering fires in the sky, the recognition of oblivion, of an end…to life, to love. Eyes that witnessed the struggle to survive, and saw with wonder its inevitable failure. To know and to understand that we must all die, Trull Sengar, is not to worship death. To know and to understand is itself magic, for it made us stand tall.

Leisure is not a relevant notion. Consider the weariness that often afflicts your kind, late in their lives. Then multiply that countless times. This is the burden of being long-lived.

Sites of battle held on to a madness, as if the blood that had soaked into the soil remembered pain and terror and held locked within it the echoes of screams and death cries.

When that which offers blessing predicates such on the absolute obeisance of the supplicant…demands, in fact, the soul's willing enslavement – no, how could such a force stand tall in moral probity?

he could see the darkness pulse, and the smell of decay had thickened to a stench.

You can't steer anyone away from the path they're going to take. You can show 'em that there's plenty of other paths – you can do that much – but past that? They'll go where they go.

By that argument, is not the opposite equally true? That what we reject ceases. That 'truth' is born in what we seek. That we create in order to believe. That we find only what we have created. That wonder does not exist outside ourselves? By our belief, we create the gods. And so, in turn, we can destroy them. With a single thought. A moment's refusal, an instant's denial.

This is what was, once. Terrible armies of T'lan Imass. We hunted down the Jaghut. We gave them what I see here. By all the spirits, is this our only voice?

A pang of regret hit Tattersail upon meeting the boy's bright, eager gaze. Chances were, he'd be dead within a few months. The Empire had many crimes staining its banner, but this was the worst of them.

The terrible agony that had been unleashed here seemed to remain coiled in the air, poised, ready to snatch at his sanity. In self-defense, his soul withdrew, deeper, ever deeper.

The pot-thrower in the hut behind the shop, hands and forearms slick with clay, dreaming, yes, of the years in which a life took shape, when each press of a fingertip sent a deep track across a once smooth surface, changing the future, reshaping the past, and was this not as much chance as design? For all that intent could score a path, that the ripples sent up and down and outward could be surmised by decades of experience, was the outcome ever truly predictable?

Think what you like about yourself, but we will continue seeing you as you are - a noble man." "Noble -" "Not that kind of noble, Ganoes. This is the kind that's earned, the only kind that means anything. Because, in this day and age, it's damned rare.