Quotes from Steven Erikson

We are contrary creatures, us humans, but that isn't something we need be afraid of, or even much troubled by. And if you make a list of those people who worship consistency, you'll find they're one and all tyrants or would-be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or a wife, or some cowering child.

After all, war knows no other language. In war we invite our own destruction. In war we punish our children with a broken legacy of blood.

Speaking of which, what's your take on abortion?' 'Do you eat eggs?' 'Excuse me?' 'The unborn embryos of chickens, Samantha.

Precipitous creature,' Kruppe muttered, reaching for the mug of wine the man had left behind. 'Ah, look at this,' he said, frowning up at Crokus, 'nigh two-thirds full. A potential waste!' Kruppe drank it down in one swift gulp, then sighed. 'Said potential averted, Dessembrae be praised.

Out onto the battered road, then, the city falling away behind them. After a time, Karsa glanced back and bared his teeth at her. 'Listen. That is better, yes?' 'I hear only the wind.' 'Better than ten thousand tireless contrivances.

We have a talent for disguising greed under the cloak of freedom. As for past acts of depravity, we prefer to ignore those. Progress, after all, means to look ever forward, and whatever we have trampled in our wake is best forgotten

We must fight to earn our right to all we would claim for ourselves. This is the struggle of all life. There are those who would deny us this right – they feel it belongs to them alone. Today, we shall assert otherwise.

Balance has an eternal enemy, and its name is ambition.

It's the ignorant who find a cause and cling to it, for within that is the illusion of significance. Faith, a king, queen or Emperor, or vengeance…all the bastion of fools. The

Because true friends knew when to keep silent, to give all the patience needed.

There is nothing wrong with where we are, how we are. You spit on satisfaction, leaving you always unsettled and miserable. I am a Teblor – we live simply enough, and we see the cruelty of your so-called progress. Slaves, children in chains, a thousand lies to make one person better than the next, a thousand lies telling you this is how things should be, and there's no stopping it.

It plagues the young, this need to find reasons for things.

It is only the dumb beast that understands futile gestures – the cold necessity for them, in the face of all the hard truths. We who hold to the higher aspirations of the intellect, we surrender too quickly. And yet, in looking upon that dog – a creature knowing only loyalty and courage – we find flavours to wound our own souls.

He'd stood amidst the ranks more than once, sensing the soldiers alongside him seeking and finding that place in the mind, cold and silent, the place where husbands, fathers, wives and mothers became killers. And practice made it easier, each time. Until it becomes a place you never leave.

But it all turned out for the best, sir, didn't it?' 'Yup. But let's not let success undermine the patronizing certainty of our convictions.

Tradition was the last bastion of fools.

He rubbed at his face, as if seeking to awaken the right words from muscle, blood and bone.

And the fact remained, whatever games the gods played, it was hard-working dirt-poor bastards like him who suffered for it.

Laughing, he'd flung dense clouds of earth and stone skyward to blind them.

Omens are for fools, but every truth of the future resides in the present, if only we have the will to see

The spokesman smiled. "Ah, but, Kruppe, Gifts are not easily attained, nor are Virtues, nor are Doubts easily overcome, and Hungers are ever the impetus to climbing.

Invaders did not stay invaders for ever. Eventually, they became no different from every other tribe or people in a land. Languages muddied, blended, surrendered. Habits were exchanged like currency, and before too long everyone saw the world the same way as everyone else. And if that way was wrong, then misery was assured, for virtually everyone, for virtually ever.

Madam, let's not be so crass. We're Terrans, after all, forever virtuous, eternally right in all matters of comportment, wise and clever, honest and forthright, inclined to modest errors in judgement while maintaining our heartfelt desire to do good and therefore entirely capable of sweeping under the carpet all the genocidal horrors studding our history in the galaxy.

Skintick could not find himself in that future. He did not expect to complete this journey. He was not sure he even wanted to.