Quotes from Steven Erikson

Generally speaking, people useless at everything else become academics

Oh yes, I have learned much from Tremorlor, and so assume a like strategy. Silence, a faint mocking smile suggesting I know more than I do, an air of mystery, yes, and fell knowledge. None could guess my confusion, my host of deluded illusions and elusive delusions!

Is that you?" came Shurq's voice from the darkness within. "Why yes," Bugg said, "it is." "Liar. You're not you, you're Bugg. Where's Tehol? I need to talk to Tehol.

That is all faith is, you know. Pity for our souls.

Tool interrupted, 'do you mock me, or your own ignorance? Not even the lichen of the tundra is at peace. All is struggle, all is war for dominance. Those who lose, vanish.

There was an old saying among the Perish that a room full of women was a knife-seller's vision of paradise. 'There will be betrayal.' Oh yes indeed. Betrayal .

the mind that has convinced itself of its own superiority is incapable of humility, and in the absence of humility, it is incapable of growth.

Do you know its meaning, Caladan?' 'Pur Rakess Calas ne A'nom. Roughly, Strength in Standing Still.' 'A'nom', said the Son of Darkness, frowning. 'Perhaps,' the Azathanai said, 'as a babe, you were quick to stand.' 'And Rakess? Or Rake, as you would call me?' 'Only what I see in you, and what all others see in you. Strength.' 'I feel no such thing.' 'No one who is strong does.

Is that all we mortals are? The victims of tortured irony to amuse an insane murder of gods? A murder of crows, a murder of gods-I like that, lass.

Such is the irony of life,» Kruppe proclaimed, raising one pastry-filled hand over his head, «that one learns to distrust the obvious, surrendering instead to insidious suspicion and confused conclusion. But, is Kruppe deceived? Can an eel swim? Hurrah, these seeming muddy waters are home to Kruppe, and his eyes are wide with wonder.»

War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity.

Rely not upon conscience,' Feren said, hearing the bitterness in her own voice and not caring. 'It ever kneels to necessity.

I have tolerated the deceitful and the malicious for long enough. My sword shall now answer them.

Faith is a personal accord between a lone soul and that in which it chooses to believe. In any other guise it is nothing more than a thin coat of sacred paint slapped over politics and the secular lust for power.

Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.

Too old to dream of perfection, perhaps, she had instead discovered a certain delicious appeal in flaws.

But lessons only became lessons when one has reached the state of humility required to heed them.

He is strong enough to stand exposed, revealing all that is vulnerable within him. He is brave enough to invite you ever closer. If you hurt him, he will withdraw, as he must, and that path to him will be thereafter for ever sealed. But he begins with the gift of himself. What the other does with it defines the future of that particular relationship.

Secrets have power so long as they remain secrets

Compassion existed when and only when one could step outside oneself, to suddenly see the bars from inside the cage.

I shall call him Tufty.

Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal's hands. Such is the only end to immortality.

Conviction is a fist of stone at the heart of all things. Its form is shaped by sure hands, the detritus quickly swept from view. It is built to withstand, built to defy challenge, and when cornered it fights without honour. There is nothing more terrible than conviction.

Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they see how those others are deceived and made into fools because they chose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.