Steven Erikson Quotes

Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.

Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal's shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched before one now stretched before him.

Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light.

The stars, they are as the sun. Each star. Every star. And those spheres- they are worlds, realms, each one different yet the same.

Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!' The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. 'Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?'

Karsa grinned, 'Why, a civilized one.'

'Indeed!' Shadowthrone turned to Cotillion. 'And you doubted this one!

None could guess my confusion, my host of deluded illusions and elusive delusions! A mantle of marble hiding a crumbling core of sandstone. See how they stare at me, wondering, all wondering, at my secret wellspring of wisdom...'
Let's kill him,' Crokus muttered, 'if only to put him out of our misery.

Powiedz mi, Tool, o czym myślisz najczęściej?
Imass wzruszył ramionami. – O bezcelowości, przyboczna.
– Czy wszyscy Imassowie o niej myślą?
– Nie. Większość w ogóle nie myśli.
– A to dlaczego?
Przechylił głowę. – Dlatego, że to bezcelowe, przyboczna.

Land, domination, pre-emptive attacks - all just excuses, mundane justifications that do nothing but disguise the simple distinction. They are not us. We are not them.

History comforts the dull-witted,”” the young Malazan said.

Beneth barked a laugh as he reached the gate. “And whose words are those, Pella? Not yours.”

The guard’s brows rose, then shrugged. “I forget you’re Korelri sometimes, Beneth. Those words? Emperor Kellanved.

If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in. We are desperate with our dreams. What - oh, what - does that say?

What is there left to understand? Choice is an illusion. Freedom is conceit. The hands that reach out to guide your every step, your every thought, come not from the gods, for they are no less deluded than we - no, my friends, those hands come to each of us... from each of us.

Laws decide wich forms of oppression are allowed, Lord. And because of that, those laws are servants to those in power, for whom oppression is given as a right over those who have little or no power.

Power is violence, its promise, its deed. Power cares nothing for reason, nothing for justice, nothing for compassion. It is, in fact, the singular abnegation of these things – once the cloak of deceits is stripped away, this one truth is revealed.

With the Black Company series Glen Cook single-handedly changed the face of fantasy - something a lot of people didn’t notice and maybe still don’t. He brought the story down to a human level, dispensing with the cliché archetypes of princes, kings, and evil sorcerers. Reading his stuff was like reading Vietnam War fiction on peyote.

A civilization can easily drown in what it knows as in what doesn't know. Consider,' he continued, Gotho's Folly. Gotho's curse was in being too aware - of everything. Every permutation, every potential. Enough to poison every scan he cast on the world. It availed him naught, and worse, he was aware of even that.

The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.'
- Traveller

Gods, I wish the world was full of passive women.He thougt for a moment longer, then scowled. On second thoughts, what a nightmare that'd be. It's the job of a man to fan the spark into flames, not quench it...

The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises.