Quotes from Steven Erikson

Keep repeating the exercise of grief and it loses meaning, it becomes rote, false, a game of self-delusion, self-indulgence. A way of never getting over anything, ever.

Expect another battle, at dawn. A messy one" "Leave that to me" Anomander Rake drawled. The voice pulled Whiskeyjack round in surprise "Lord, forgive me. I didn't see you. I'm afraid I was somewhat...preoccupied." Dujek asked "You are offering to set your Tiste Andii against the Tenescowri, Lord?" "Hardly," Rake replied. "I mean to scare them witless. In person.

Rake was an atmosphere, a heart-thudding, terror-threaded presence no-one could ignore, much less escape. Violence, antiquity, sombre pathos, and darkest horror – the Son of Darkness was a gelid eddy in immortality's current, and the Mhybe could feel, crawling beneath her very skin, every Rhivi spirit awakened in desperation.

Because, Toc the Younger, you are the brother of Onos T'oolan. His true brother now. And for all the mercy that once dwelt in your mortal heart, only ghosts remain. They must not love you. They must not believe in you. For you are not the man you once were.

Just remember, Henar, I don't do this for just anybody!' 'Do what?' She stepped forward, blades lifting. 'Dance.

Truth cared nothing for stories. The real world was indifferent to what people wanted to be, to how they wanted everything to turn out.

A sudden wind thrashed the treetops in the garden, sweeping down from the east.

The trouble with Ascendants is that they try to rig every game. Of course, we delight in . . . uncertainty." A

This was the lure of violence, and violence did not begin at the moment of physical assault; it began earlier, in all the thoughts that led up to it, in that storm of vehemence and venom. Rage beckoned violence

from a burning tenement block spread an acrid haze that made breathing tortured. They rode through the silent aftermath of slaughter, when the rage has passed and awareness returns with shock and shame. The moment was a single indrawn breath in what Fiddler knew would be an ever-burgeoning wildfire.

We rejected civilization, but so too we rejected anarchy for its petty belligerence and the weakness of thought it announced. By these decisions, we made ourselves lost and bereft of purpose

When a poet speaks of truth to another poet, what hope has truth?

And why would a monk slit my throat, Stillwater?' She shrugged. 'Who can figure out the mind of a monk?

It is far too easy to see you as a knot-browed barbarian, Toblakai. No, the drive to create is something other, isn't it? Have you an answer?' He shrugged. 'If one exists, it will only be found in the search – and searching is at creation's heart, Chosen One.

Children are dying.' Lull nodded. '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.

Indolence takes many forms, but it comes to every civilization that has outlived its will.

Yet his feeling of wrongness now ached in his skull.

Years ago, she had not known the magnitude of the loss, for there had been nothing to offer a contrast to misery, hunger and abuse.

twittering among themselves in some obscure but vehement argument.

The rewards of wealth beyond measure had proved cold; only the hungry desire for that wealth hissed with heat.

The young were better at making friends. The young had nothing to lose

You can't leave all these people behind. They're outside the endless excitement and lust, the frenzied accumulation. They're outside and can only look on with growing despair and envy. What happens when rage supplants helplessness? Increasingly, the ranks of the military were filling with the lowest classes. Training, acceptable income and a full belly provided the incentives, yet these soldiers were not enamoured of the civilization they were sworn to defend.

your scars burn bright on your soul

Though he'd never seen her, just her name on the hot, dry wind was enough to give him the shakes. Mage killer, the scorpion in the Imperial pocket.