Quotes from Steven Erikson

Everything worth fighting for is gained without fighting. Every struggle is a struggle against doubt. Honour is not a thing to be chased, for it, as with all other forces of life, is in fact impelled, streaking straight for you. The moment of collision is where the truth of you is revealed.

Do gods break those they would have as worshipers? Do they set upon their children terrible ordeals, so that those children must kneel in surrender, opening their souls to helplessness?

Ain't nothing so tensifying as running for your life at a snail's pace, let me tell you

Life fears chaos. It was ever thus. We fear it more than anything else, because it is anathema. Order battles against dissolution. Order negotiates cooperation as a mechanism of survival, on every scale, from a patch of skin to an entire menagerie of interdependent creatures. That cooperation, of course, may not of essence be necessarily peaceful - a minute exchange of failures to ensure greater successes.

Wait." He stepped closer. "Listen to me, Scillara." And then he was silent, on his face a war of feelings trying to find words.

Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgement, the weapon you wield delivers – and let us not be coy here – naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause.

Hunched, his face pulsing with pain, Mebra watched with hooded eyes as his words sank roots into the Red Blade commander's mind.

When thugs were in power, educated people were the first to feel their fists. It was so pathetic, really, how so much violence came from someone feeling small.

The proudest candle vanishes unseen into a raging house-fire, with none to recount the beauty of its delicate glow, or the dignity of its desire.

How many times, dear traveller, will you walk the same path?

Kruppe is generous enough this morning to disregard dubious observation regarding his eating habits and the habits of his orifices.

Hood continued to stare at the wagon, at its towering, tottering heap of bodies. And then the Lord of the Dead spoke. 'I often wondered what it looked like, this Hold creaking on its wooden wheels…a pathetic thing, really. Crude, clumsy.' He faced Draconus, rotted skin curling back from the tusks. 'Now, turn it around.

I will aknowledge that the matter is a secret but not one of my own, so I shall freely speak of it

The Tiste Edur studied the bonecaster for a long moment, as the tears ran down his gaunt cheeks. 'I weep, Monok Ochem, because he cannot.' The bonecaster faced Onrack once more. 'Broken one, there are a lot of things you deserve ... but this mortal is not among them

Healing should never be separated between the flesh and the sense of the flesh. It's hard to explain. The Denul Warrens involve every aspect of healing, since damage, when it occurs, does so on all levels. Shock is the scar that bridges the gap between the body and the mind.

And that, my love, is precisely my point. Justice bites. With snippy sharp teeth. If it doesn't, then the common folk will perceive it as unbalanced, forever favouring the wealthy and influential. When robbed, the rich cry out for protection and prosecution. When stealing, they expect the judiciary to look the other way. Well, consider this a royal punch in the face. Let them smart.

See him. In the eternity before dawn. When among mortals courage is at its weakest, when fear sinks talons on the threshold and will not let go. When one awakens to such loneliness as to twist a moan from the chest. But then... you feel it, breath catching. You feel it. You are not alone. The Watch stands guard.

quagmire of verbosity

There were secrets in music and poetry. Secrets few knew and even fewer understood. Their power often stole into a listener subtle as the memory of scent on a drawn breath, less than a whisper, yet capable of transforming the one so gifted, an instinctual ecstasy that made troubles vanish, that made all manner of grandeur possible - indeed, within reach.

His heart was vast, it was true. He was a thing of sentimentality and compassion, so contrary to his bestial appearance, his simian fire. But such creatures were vulnerable. Their hearts bled too freely, and the scars never knitted true.

Discipline is as much facing the enemy between as the enemy before you; for without critical judgement, the weapon you wield delivers - and let us not be coy here - naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause.

In proclamation, one defines his enemy for his enemy".

We are not born innocent, simply unmeasured.

Where are the days we once held So loose in our sure hands? When did these racing streams Carve depthless caves beneath our feet? And how did this scene stagger And shift to make fraught our deft lies In the places where youth will meet, In the lands of our proud dreams? Where, among all you before me, Are the faces I once knew?