Quotes from Steven Erikson

It's the last gift. I am done with this world, for I am alone in it. Alone.

There was music in death. Actors and musicians knew this as true.

The most deadly seducers are the ones encouraging conformity. If you can only feel safe when everybody else feels, thinks and looks the same as you, then you're a Hood-damned coward…not to mention a vicious tyrant in the making.

There is, on rare occasions, true joy, but each time that precious, startling moment then dwindles, and in each face you see a hint of sorrow—as if what was just found will now be for ever remembered as a thing lost. Can you be nostalgic for the instant just past? Oh yes, and it's a bittersweet taste.

Truths, yes. One after another, one boulder settling down, then another. And another. Blotting out the light, darkness closing in, grit and sand sifting down, a solid silence when the last one is in place. Now, dear fool, try drawing a breath. A single breath. There were clouds closed fast round the moon. And one by one, gardens died.

Bloody idealist. We needed to walk away. Sooner or later, no matter how much you put into what you've made, you have to turn and walk away.

Lo que sabía Tool de los detalles había suscitado en Toc muchas preguntas pero ninguna duda.

We are all pushed into a world of madness, yet it must now fall to each of us to pull back from this Abyss, to drag ourselves free of the descending spiral. From horror, grief must be fashioned, and from grief, compassion.

You are a veteran, I see. You might think that fact yields some relief on my part. It does not. I do not care where you have been, who you served under, or how many officers you knifed in the back. All I care about is how much you know about fighting.' 'Never knifed a single officer, sir…in the back. And I don't know a damned thing about fighting, except surviving it.

He did not know why he was thinking about his brother now, as he set ablaze every candle within him to make the world bright and to save all his friends. And before long he no longer sensed anyone else, barring the faint smudges they had become. The captain, the Fist, all the soldiers who were his friends, he let his light unfold to embrace them all, to keep them safe from that frightening, dark magic so eager to rush down upon them.

Then the Jaghut said, 'Hanako, I am named Raest.' 'Then welcome, Raest, to our fire.' 'Voice a single jibe, Hanako, and I might have to chop off your head. Just so you understand how this night will play.

You have barred the doors caged the windows every portal sealed to the outside world, and now you find what you feared most - there are killers and they are in the House.

The legacy of the deed remained in the Edur's brutal enslavement of Tiste Andii spirits. Faith was proved a lie, and in ignorance was found weakness. The righteousness of the Edur stood on shifting sands.

See this weapon in my hands? One false move and you're nothing but atoms!' Spark tilted its head. 'Confusion! Spark already is nothing but atoms! So is Klang Intruder!

There were loves in the world that never found voice. There were secrets never unveiled, and what would have been the point of that? She was no languid beauty. She was no genius wit. Courage failed her again and again, but not this time, as she drew sharp blades lengthways up her wrists, at precise angles, and watched as life flowed away. In Irilta's mind, this last gesture was but a formality.

We are the Hust Legion!' 'Indeed,' said Dathenar. 'And as it stands, lieutenant, we are also, to not put too fine a point on it, royally fucked.

Our civilization thrives on stupidity. And it only took a sliver of cleverness to tap that idiot vein and drink deep of the riches. Comforting, if slightly depressing. The way of most grim truths.

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.

Ah, my love. Forgive me.' He set out, boots crunching on the dead. Returned to the world. Draconus.

Bugg's Construction will be the first major enterprise to collapse.' 'And how many will it drag down with it?' 'No telling. Three, maybe four.' 'I thought you said there was no telling.' 'So don't tell anyone.' 'Good idea. Bugg

Ask no question, the river shall answer.' 'Question the river, find the answer.

Should your willpower prove unequal to the task, I am afraid that what remains of your sanity will be torn away. Your mind itself will be shredded by the maelstrom, leaving you a drooling wreck.' After a moment, he added, 'Such a state of being may not be desirable. Of course, should you achieve it, you will not care one way or the other, which you may consider a blessing.

Demons. And perhaps that was all the word 'demon' meant. Some creature torn from its own realm. Bound like a slave by a new master who cared nothing for its life, its well-being, who would simply use it like any other tool. Until made useless, whereupon it would be discarded.

I am the... the Shield Anvil. This is for me... to hold... hold on. Reach - gods! Redeem them, sir! It is your task. The heart of your vows - you are the walker among the deads in the field of battle, you are the bringer of peace, the redeemer of the fallen. You are the mender of broken lives. Without you, death is senseless, and the denial of meaning is the world's greatest crime to its own children.