Quotes from Steven Erikson

As much as it grieves me to say, there are times when getting what one wants yields nothing but confusion. It turns out that what one wants is in fact not at all what one wants. Worse is when you simply don't know what you want. You'd think death would discard such trials. If only it did.

Ciekawo?? jest moim najwi?kszym przekle?stwem, ale ?wiadomo?? posiadania wady jeszcze jej nie usuwa.

When the day knew only darkness, the wind a mute beggar stirring ashes and stars in the discarded pools beneath the old retaining wall, down where the white rivers of sand slip grain by grain into the unseen, and every foundation is but a moment from a horizon's stagger, I found myself among friends and so was made at ease with my modest list of farewells Soldier Dying Fisher kel Tath

Be assured, Torvald, Kruppe's friend, that "bad" is never as bad as bad might be, even when it's very bad indeed.

In his long years of life, Rancept had had occasion to reflect on the wondrous variability of love, as might anyone left standing on its periphery, too bent and battered to draw another's eye.

In truth, he was far less haunted by his immortality than most T'lan Imass. There was always something else to see, after all.

To be believed in is an obligation. Only by heeding that obligation are you made worthy of that belief.

Murillio sighed. 'Rallick Nom.' 'What of him?' 'I wish he were here.' 'Why?' 'So he could kill someone. Anyone. The man's a wonder at simplifying matters.' Coll grunted a laugh. '"Simplifying matters." Wait until I tell him that one. Hey, Rallick, you're not an assassin, you know, you're just a man who simplifies.

Much as she needed him to play those self-wounding games with her, she needed even more the solitude necessary for complete self-destruction. Isolation was more than a simple defence mechanism; it also served to prepare one for more severe punishments, possibly culminating in suicide. On another level, she would view her desire to drive him off as an act of mercy on her part. But that was a most irritating form of self-pity.

Emotions are the spawn of true motivations, whether those motivations be conscious or otherwise.

Why not worship money? At least its rewards are obvious and immediate. But no, that was simplistic. Letherii worship was more subtle, its ethics bound to those traits and habits that well served the acquisition of wealth. Diligence, discipline, hard work, optimism, the personalization of glory. And the corresponding evils: sloth, despair and the anonymity of failure.

any exchange of words with a woman was fraught with her torturer's array of deadly implements, each one hovering at the very edge of a man's comprehension.

Knowledge was no blessing; awareness was a disease that stained the entire spirit.

Udinaas had known many for whom certainty was a god, the only god, no matter the cast of its features. And he had seen the manner in which such belief made the world simple, where all was divisible by the sharp cleaving of cold judgement, after which no mending was possible. He had seen such certainty, yet had never shared it.

The Wickans know that the gift of power is never free. They know enough not to envy the chosen among them, for power is never a game, nor a glittering standards raised to glory and wealth. They disguise nothing in trappings, and so we all see what we'd rather not, that power is cruel, hard as iron and bone, and it thrives on destruction.

Failure to keep the street clean was symbolic of a moribund culture, a culture that had, despite loud and public exhortations to the contrary, lost its sense of pride, and its belief in itself.

Mlawhlaoblossblayowblagmilebbingoblaiblblafblablallblayarblablabnablahblallblah!' 'What?' 'Bla?' 'Bla?' 'Yarb?' 'Bah! You're stupid and useless and ugly!' 'Blabluablablablahllalalabala, too!' Iskaral Pust scowled at it. The bhokaral scowled back. 'Rat poison!' Pust hissed. And then smiled. The bhokaral offered him a dung sausage. And then smiled.

You must dismantle your sources, Toc the Younger, lest you do nothing but ape the prejudices of others.

Las civilizaciones se aseguraban de que sus héroes estuviesen muertos antes de honrarlos. La virtud era cosa de los muertos, no de los vivos.

Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. From you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge.

An army that waits is soon an army at war with itself

She pushed herself upright, stumbling as pain closed iron bands around her ankles.

Shurq Elalle: "It's a miserable existence. Day after day, night after night. One step in front of the other, on and on to nowhere in particular." Tehol Beddict: "And being dead has changed all that?

The harder the world the fiercer the honor