Quotes from Steven Erikson

Weariness awaited every unmindful soul, no matter its age, no matter its station.

Marionettes dance afield beneath masterly hands— I stumble among them crossed by the strings in tangled two-step and curse all these fools in their mad pirouette— I shall not live as they do oh, no, leave me in my circled dance— these unbidden twitchings you see I swear on Hood's Grave is artistry in motion S

I saw the sun's bolt arc an unerring path to the man's forehead. As it struck, the crows converged like night drawing breath. Dog

The dead were gone through Hood's Gate. The living were left with the pain of their passage.

Perhaps this. 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.

You're thinking like a man. That's your mistake. It's all our mistakes, in fact. It's why we're standing out here, three men, no women. If we'd gone and said, why, Precious, we wouldn't even think of it, you know what she'd say then? "What's wrong with me? Am I too ugly or something?" and we'd be in trouble all over again!' Gruntle glanced bemusedly at Mappo, who, rather cryptically, simply nodded.

Onos T'oolan faced southeast. And then set out. He had a people to kill.

What is otataral, you ask? Otataral is the opposite of magic. Negation to creation, absence to presence. If life is your god, then otataral is the other god, and that god is death. But, please understand, it is not an enemy. It is the necessary manifestation of a force in opposition. Both are essential, and together they are bound in the nature of existence itself. We are reviled for revealing the truth.

Hear them rattle These chains of living Bound to every moment passed Until the wreckage clamours In deafening wake And each stride trails A dirge of the lost. - House of Chains

After all, tyranny has no sense of humour. Too thin-skinned, too thoroughly full of its own self-importance. Accordingly, it presents an almost overwhelming temptation – how can I not be excused the occasional mockery?

Drunken oblivion was, each time, a small, temporary death. Hood walked where the self once stood, and the wake of the god's passage sickened mortal flesh afterwards.

The absence within you, Icarium, is both blessing and curse - you do understand that, don't you?" "There is no blessing in that absence. All that I have done cannot demand its rightful price. Cannot mark my soul. And so I remain unchanging, forever naïve—" "Innocent—" "No, not innocent. There is nothing exculpatory in ignorance, Taralack Veed.

It is what we can bear,' she whispered. 'But there is more to life than suffering.

War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity. Speak not of just causes, worthy goals. We are takers of life. Servants of Hood, one and all.

The lessons of civilization.' 'Just so. There's little value in seeking to find reasons for why people do what they do, or feel the way they feel. Hatred is a most pernicious weed, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself.

The stranger's arm intercepted him.

Confidence was a seed that could grow in any soil, no matter how impoverished. She had seen as much again and again.

Fanaticism was poison in the soul, and the first victim in its inexorable, ever-growing list was compassion. Who could speak of freedom, when one's own soul was bound in chains?

Brother, you look unwell.' Appearances deceive, Greyfrog. For example, you have never looked prettier.

An item," he said softly, his eyes on the disc, "that passes without provenance, pursued by many who thirst for its cold kiss, on which life and all that lay within life is often gambled. Alone, a beggar's crown. In great numbers, a king's folly. Weighted with ruin, yet blood washes from it beneath the lightest rain, and to the next no hint of its cost. It is as it is, says Kruppe, worthless but for those who insist otherwise.

He would look upon my house and pronounce it adequate. Adequate! Oh, how I hated that word! My sweat, my blood, and he called them adequate! And then he would walk inside and close the door, and I would place the last stone, and the house would vanish! I don't think I like Gothos.

Paranoia's the assassin's bedmate

And this, she now realized, was the reason why the gods did nothing. Proof of their omniscience. After all, to act was to announce awful limitations, for it revealed that chance acted first, the accidents were just that – events beyond the will of the gods – and all they could do in answer was to attempt to remedy the consequences, to alter natural ends. To act, then, was an admission of fallibility.

The sergeant had been leaning, arms crossed, against one of the marble pillars encircling the fountain, but at seeing the tall dragon-masked figure he came near to toppling into the fountain behind him.