R. Scott Bakker Quotes

The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?

1669

Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools.

3301

Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.

4126

Here we find further argument for Gotagga’s supposition that the world is round. How else could all men stand higher than their brothers?

2001

We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one's own deception is to accuse others of deceit.

3927

It is strange the way trauma deadens curiosity. To suffer cruelty in excess is to be delivered from care. The human heart sets aside its questions when the future is too capricious. This is the irony of tribulation.

To know the world will never be so bad.

2745

Zsoronga, Sorweel was beginning to realize, possessed the enviable ability to yoke his conviction to his need - to believe, absolutely, whatever his heart required. For Sorweel, belief and want always seemed like ropes too short to bind together, forcing him to play the knot as a result.

2431

Saying 'I could have done more,' Zin, is what marks a man as a man and not a God.

3173

Gods are but greater demons," the Cishaurim said, "hungers across the surface of eternity, wanting only to taste the clarity of our souls. Can you not see this?

2899

I remeber asking a wise man, once . . . 'Why do Men fear the dark?' . . . 'Because darkness' he told me, 'is ignorance made visable.' 'And do Men despise ignorance?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'they prize it above all things-all things!-but only so long as it remains invisible.

4322

There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.

3814

Consequences lost all purchase when they became mad. And desperation, when pressed beyond anguish, became narcotic.

4937

Something ... made him feel small, not in the way of orphans or beggars or children, but in a good way. In the way of souls.

3525

Hoga Gothyelk no longer felt anger, not truly - only varieties of sorrow.

3206