Quotes from Steven Erikson

Since you can never crush a black market the next best thing is to run it

There is plenty of dignity in just holding on

It is my feeling,' she said, haltingly, 'that a faith that delivers perfect answers to every question is not a true faith, for its only purpose is to satisfy, to ease the mind and so end its questing.

Wisdom did not belong to mortals, and those whom others called wise were only those who, through grim experience, had touched the very edges of unwelcome truths.

Not one of you is fit to smell my horse's farts!" But he grinned, unstrapping a beer-filled bladder and tossing it one-handed to the nearest Arak. "But let us camp with your troop this night and for a sliver you may feel its heat with your palms—once only! For more you must pay!

only once brushing gazes with the black man leaning against the bar.

Wilful fools with murder in their rotted hearts believed otherwise. They divided the dead into innocent victim and the rightfully punished, and knew with unassailable conviction upon which side they themselves stood. With such conviction, the plunging of knives proved so very easy.

One can find precious value in brevity

He felt his own fear racing through his body, and it was with trembling hands that he read the Eel's message.

Three husbands and two sons, ten coin apiece a year. Five of ten's fifty. Fifty coin a year's cold company, lass. Cold in winter, cold in bed.

No soul deserved to stand alone

It is the curse of leaders to believe they can truly change the world. A curse that has even afflicted me, it seems.

Starlight played on its swirling surface two hundred paces away. Moths fluttered like flecks of snow fleeing the warm wind. Neither man spoke for a long while.

Only a soul that has surrendered utterly gives up on notions of redemption.

masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt.

That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.

His route to them met with one obstacle after another as he negotiated his way across the room, excusing himself at every turn and twist.

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.

Forest soon replaced the exposed bedrock, slowly shifting from coniferous to deciduous, the hills giving way to flatter ground. The trees then thinned, and suddenly, beyond a line of tangled deadfall, plains stretched before them, and the rain was gone. Onrack raised a hand. 'We shall halt here.

He's new to responsibility, Captain. You'll have to teach him." Teach him what? How to live beneath the burden of command? That's something I can't manage myself. I need only look into Whiskeyjack's face to understand that no one can - no-one who has a heart, anyway. We learn to achieve but one thing: the ability to hide our thoughts, to mask our feelings, to bury our humanity deep in our souls. And that can't be taught, only shown.

He swung a hard, challenging gaze to the sergeant.

Paran flicked his gaze to his weapon, glared back up and around at the warriors, then his eyes returned to Chance. And stayed there.

Sorry stared at the coin, feeling echoes of power slam into her skull like ocean waves.

peregrination has been anything but peaceful.