Quotes from Steven Erikson

When I Ascended, Lady, it was to escape the nightmares of feeling…" He grimaced. "Imagine my surprise that I now thank you for such chains.

The midday heat sapped her strength, and the sluggishness reached through to her thoughts

When we speak of ancient times, Rud Elalle, we find in our words things far nearer to hand, and all those emotions we imagined new, blazing with our youth, we find to be ancient beyond imagining.

People suffered, many died, but they struggled through and they survived.

The existence of many gods conveys true complexity of mortal life. Conversely, the assertion of but one god leads to a denial of complexity, and encourages the need to make the world simple. Not the fault of the god, but a crime committed by its believers.

In natural justice, Arathan, the weak cannot hide, unless we grant them the privilege. And understand, it is ever a privilege, for which the weak should be eternally grateful.

if there be callous ones among them, ah, what is it that you fear to reveal? There in that tear, that low sob? You smile in superiority, but what is the nature of this triumph of yours? I wish to know. Your self-made chains draped so tight about you are nothing to be proud of. Your inability to feel is not a virtue. And your smile has cracks.

Well, that's how the past is for most of us, Tammy. A jumbled collection of sordid stupidities, hopeless longings and hapless regrets.

Whoever waited outside was impatient – thunder rang imperiously through the room even as the old man reached for the bar.

But the world had its layers. To the simple it offered simplicity. To the wise it offered profundity. And the only measure of courage worth acknowledging was found in accepting where one stood in that scheme – in hard

It is an extraordinary act of courage,' said Tulas Shorn, 'to come to know a stranger's pain. To even consider such a thing demands a profound dispensation, a willingness to wear someone else's chains, to taste their suffering, to see with one's own eyes the hue cast on all things – the terrible stain that is despair.

It is a fool's curse, to measure oneself in endless dissatisfaction.

Heed the lesson there, son." "What lesson?" "Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly." "I want to be a soldier. A hero." "You'll grow out of it.

And somehow they would be less than human then. The game the mind must play to unleash destruction

Failure wasn't a pleasant notion. It stung. It burned like acid.

A celebration of insignificance. Is that all we are in the end?

He'd forgotten how irritating company could be. Uninvited, unwelcome, persistent reminder of his own weaknesses. And

My God," Hadrian said. "They finally did it! All those oh-so-cute-my-cuddly-kitten-here's-a-pic bastard! They finally went and did it!

A bravura, pequenino", disse ele enquanto puxava o cão da água para depois descansar a cabeça sobre seu pescoço musculoso " é marcada por uma força menor do que se imaginava, e uma esperança mais distante do que se esperava ter.

The trust I have...for some people...comes down to how well I know them, and then it's a matter of my trusting them to do what I think they're going to do.

Why, Lieutenant, are you suggesting that there are forces in the Affiliation opposed to humans evolving into post-consumers, thus freeing themselves from all the pressures of conformity, rabid acquisitiveness, endlessly destructive expansion, pointless competition, and the miserable strictures of hierarchies based on who has the most wealth?

Planning to reach this point was one thing; having now reached it was another. He hadn't considered how he'd feel. Justice got in the way of that, a white fire he'd had no reason to look behind, or push aside. Justice had seduced him and he wondered what he had just lost, he wondered at the death he felt spreading within him. The regret following in that death's wake, so unanswerable it was, threatened to overwhelm him.

Their reappearance on the plain was enough to announce their success and the Wickans raised a wail that ran through each clan's encampment, the sound as much sorrowful as triumphant, a fitting dirge to announce the fall of a god.

Is that all we mortals are? The victims of tortured irony to amuse an insane murder of gods?' 'A murder of crows, a murder of gods—I like that, lass. As for tortured irony, more like exquisite irony.