Quotes from Steven Erikson

Can you be nostalgic for the instant just past? Oh yes, and it's a bittersweet taste.

To see a face behind a name, if that name was wreathed in tales of heroism, was a clean kind of curiosity. But the face of a monster invited its own fascination, perhaps in the shock of recognition, since every face could be seen in one; or, more to the point, from that one face, it took little imagination to find one's own.

Sunrise smiled to himself at hearing Sweetlard try out that Malazan way of talking. 'Aye.' It's a good word, I think. More a whole attitude than a word, really. With lots of meaning in it, too. A bit of 'yes' and a bit of 'well, fuck' and maybe some 'we're all in this mess together'. So, a word to sum up the Malazans. He uttered his own sigh and settled his head back. 'Aye,' he said.

Poets may know hunger,' she commented drily, 'but historians devour. And devouring murders language, makes of it a dead thing.

People need to know where they came from, Sand. Especially if they've lived generations not knowing.

Things should make sense. From one end to the other, no matter from which direction one elected to begin the journey, everything should fit. Fitting neatly was the gift of order, proof of control, and from control, mastery. He would not accept an unknowable world. Mysteries needed hunting down. Like

Truth is a pressure, and I see us all shying away. But, my friends, from truth there can be no escape.

What makes a better human being? Is it just a question of faster, stronger, smarter? But smarter in what way? Computationally? This idea of augmenting our species through technology, adding new RAM to the old hard-drive as it were, seems to miss the point. And that is that we can be better right now, without technology. Augmentation is pointless if we keep repeating the same old mistakes. And efficiency is not the same as better, not even close. You want to be a better human being? Start today.

Virtues were lauded to ensure compliance, to wrap round raw, reprehensible servitude. To proclaim the sacrifice of others – each of whom stood in place of those reaping the rewards and so were paid in suffering and pain. So much for the majesty of patriotism.

Now, after all this time, he was able to realize that every path eventually, inevitably dwindled into a single line of footsteps. There, leading to the very edge. Then…gone. And so, he faced only what every mortal faced. The solitude of death, and oblivion's final gift that was indifference.

It's a storm,' he said after a moment. 'Storms pass. I need a reason to procrastinate.

But Raraku defied every season. Raraku itself was eternal in its momentousness, perpetually awaiting rebirth. Patience in the stone, in the restless, ever-murmuring sands.

The weight of the weapon would defy the current – that was the important thing, the way it would refuse to be carried along. Some things could do that. Some things possessed the necessary weight to acquire a will of their own.

Rake nodded. 'When you do, leave him alive. He has earned Dragnipur.' 'We

Boatfinder, tell me, from the frozen time into the flowing time, is there a bridge?' His smile was wistful, filled with longing. 'There is.' 'But you cannot cross it.' 'No.' 'Because it's burning.' 'Yes, witch, the bridge burns.

The conquerors always assumed that what they conquered was identity. But the truth was, identity could only be killed from within, and even that gesture was but a chimera. Isolation had many children, and dissolution was but one of them – yet its path was unique, for that path began when identity was left behind.

Ascendancy was but one of the countless mysteries of the world, a world where uncertainty ruled all—god and mortal alike—and its rules were impenetrable.

He let out a slow breath, only now realizing he was lying on an ants' nest and its inhabitants were telling him to leave in no uncertain terms. I lie with the weight of a god on their world, and these ants don't like it. We're so much more alike than most would think.

War isn't just one thing, over and over again. It's a thing that never stops changing, and every change is just fucking worse than what went before.

Kallor never failed such moments. Let the curse flail him, strike him down; let defeat batter him again and again. He would just get back up, shake the dust off, and begin once more. He knew the world was damned.

History comforts the dull-witted

Mammot's face crinkled into a wise smile.

She behaved as would a widow, the kind that then made mourning a way of life, a ritualized assembly of habits. The light of day had become a thing to turn away from. A gesture of invitation was answered with muttered regrets. And the sorrowing mask never left her face.

So much had changed inside him. He was no believer in causes, not any more. Certainty was an illusion, a lie. 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?