Quotes from Steven Erikson

Mistress to these footprints Lover to the wake of where He has just passed, for the path he wanders is between us all. The sweet taste of loss feeds every mountain stream, Failing ice down to seas warm as blood threading thin our dreams. For where he leads her has lost its bones, And the trail he walks is flesh without life and the sea remembers nothing.

What makes me worse than any other corpse?' 'Other corpses don't fight back, for one thing.' The undead woman came closer. 'Why would I feel compelled to resist? Is she not simply making me pretty?' 'Of course. I was just making conversation. And how have you been, Shurq Elalle?' 'The same.' 'The same. Which is?' 'I've been better. Still, many would call consistency a virtue.

A child starved never grows tall or strong. A child unloved can never find love or give it when grown. A child that does not laugh will become someone who can find nothing in the world to laugh at. And a child hurt deeply enough will spend a lifetime trying to scab that wound – even as they ceaselessly pick at it.

everything – now sank beneath a familiar cloud, settling grey and thick, where every shape was but hinted at, where he was lost. As lost as he had been, as lost as any and every mortal soul, no matter how blustery its claims to certainty, to faith. And yet…and yet it was a warm cloud, shot through with precious things: his love for his wife, his children; his wonder at their lives, the changes that came to them day by day. He found he was weeping, even as he climbed to his feet.

Damaged children know only despair. When they are grown into adults, that despair lies at the core of all that they do. It shapes their lives. It makes monsters of men and women who in turn perpetuate the cycle of despair with all the victims within their reach. Often, those victims are their own children.' She turned to look up at Kolo. 'This must be forgiven. All must be forgiven. To live the life of a victim is to be trapped inside despair, and no soul deserves that.

Don't hold to any faith. Even legends die.

Would it be enough? He did not know, but it had to be, for without friends there was nothing, no-one.

Patience, the full weight of regard, the willingness to listen and the readiness to teach – were these not the responsibilities of parenthood?

In a war between fanatics and skeptics, the fanatics win every time.

If I am their god, why don't they listen to anything I say? " "Maybe they are but waiting for you to say the right thing." "Really? And what would that be, you fat oaf?" "Well, whatever it is they want to hear, of course.

Torvald Nom: "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." Karsa Orlong: "With words." "Indeed, with words. Form an opinion, say it often enough and pretty soon everyone's saying it right back at you." – HoC 236

Pella started as a massive shape separated itself from behind the hanging.

If all honest observation ends up sounding critical, is it the honesty you then reject, or the act of observation?

Seeing victory only moments away stripped caution from the hunters.

And so we weep for the fallen. We weep for those yet to fall, and in war the screams are loud and harsh and in peace the wail is so drawn-out we tell ourselves we hear nothin

Yet peruse these stars overhead. They glisten with a youthful energy, nay, sparkle as if amused by the one who contemplates them. While the earth itself hints of vast blushes of red, orange and lavender.

Today, the empire is reborn. In violence and blood, as with all births. And what, when this day is done, shall we find lying in our lap? Eyes opening onto this world?

Qué es lo que convierte a un soldado malazano en un miliciano tan peligroso? Se les permite pensar.

A a?koliv nebyla opilá poÃ…â"¢ád, stÃ…â"¢ízlivost pÃ…â"¢ináÅ¡ela hysterii, a tak se Hellian snažila chodit po vratkém lanÄ› neúplné opilosti.

Returning to… sanity? Perhaps. But Heboric Ghost Hands had no firm grasp of what sanity was, what it looked like, felt like, smelled like. It might be that he had never known. – TB 486

I think I understand. Before there can be disdain, there must be pride. One day I will find something to be proud of, and then I will find this taste of disdain, and see if it suits me. Should I not think this, being my father's son? And yet, I do not. Pride needs no claws, no scaled armour about itself. Not every virtue must be a weapon. These thoughts are my own. I will not crush them.

Shock registered in Baruk's face.

Go ask 'em if you like." "No. Too much effort. The bad thing about asking questions—" "Is gettin' answers, aye - you've said that before." "That is another bad thing - the way we all end up saying the same things over and over again.

The truth may hide at your feet. The truth may lie coiled in high grasses. But it still has claws, it still has fangs. Be careful, Captain, where you step.