Top 100 Steven Erikson Quotes
#1. If you come to the window, and look through the other end, Karsa, you will see things far away drawn closer.' He scowled at her, and set the instrument down. 'If something is far away, I simply ride closer.
Steven Erikson
#2. When two people are paying close attention to each other, check out the others in the group and see who's observing. Human dynamics are amazing, but so much that you might learn is subconscious interplay.
Steven Erikson
#3. There are times, Kruppe murmurs, when celibacy born of sad deprivation becomes a boon, nay, a source of great relief.
Steven Erikson
#4. Life is like a clam," Birds Mottle's father once told her. "Years filtering shit then some bastard cracks you open and scrapes you into its damned mouth.
Steven Erikson
#5. 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.
Steven Erikson
#7. Take any segment of population, impose strict yet clear definitions on their particular characteristics, then target them for compliance. Bribe the weak to expose the strong. Kill the strong, and the rest are yours. Move on to the next segment.
Steven Erikson
#8. All they get around here is stories. Stories don't make you bleed. Stories don't make you go hungry, don't give you sore feet. When you're young smelling of pigshit and convinced there ain't a weapon in all the damn world that's going to hurt you, all stories do is make you want to be part of them.
Steven Erikson
#9. We go to partake of death. And it is in these moments, before the blades are unsheated, before blood wets the ground and screams fill the air, that the futility descends upon us all. Without our armor, we would all weep.
Steven Erikson
#10. There is power in nature,' Ilgast replied, 'and what is often forgotten is that nature lies within us as much as it does out there, amidst high grasses or shoreline. To heal is to draw across the divide; that and nothing more.
Steven Erikson
#11. A true believer, indeed, need never draw a weapon, need never rise in argument, or howl in fury, or make fists, or roll in a mob to crush some helpless, innocent enemy. A true believer needs none of those things. How much of the world insists on living this lie? Blinking,
Steven Erikson
#12. The longer one lives, the less valued is that life. Why is that?
Steven Erikson
#13. Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death.
Steven Erikson
#14. And what,' he asked the dragons, 'so spurred their zeal?'
'Vengeance, of course. And Anomandaris.
Steven Erikson
#15. The simple ones aren't simple. The broken ones aren't broken. They are rearranged.
Steven Erikson
#17. Soldiers are issued armour for their flesh and bones, but they must fashion their own for their souls. Piece by piece. (Itkovian)
Steven Erikson
#18. He felt his own fear racing through his body, and it was with trembling hands that he read the Eel's message.
Steven Erikson
#19. War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity. Speak not of just causes, worthy goals. We are takers of life. Servants of Hood, one and all.
Steven Erikson
#21. The image was etching itself into Kalam's heart like acid into bronze.
Steven Erikson
#22. It slowly dawned on the thief that a duel was but moments away.
Steven Erikson
#23. I don't like being retired. It's like announcing an end to your worth, whatever that worth was, and the longer you go on, the more you realize that that worth wasn't worth anything like you once thought it was, and that just makes it worse.
Steven Erikson
#24. You still think like a child, don't you? Clay figurines sunk to their ankles in the sand, one here, one there, standing just so. One says this, the other says that, then you reach down and rearrange them accordingly. Scenes, vistas, stark with certainty.
Steven Erikson
#25. Do you wander and wonder? Do you start at your own shadow, or awaken to rattling disbelief that this is all you are, prospects bleak, bereft of the proof of your ambition?
Steven Erikson
#26. The sergeant had been leaning, arms crossed, against one of the marble pillars encircling the fountain, but at seeing the tall dragon-masked figure he came near to toppling into the fountain behind him.
Steven Erikson
#27. I hear Seven Cities natives grow fruit just so they can eat the larvae in them.
Steven Erikson
#28. All that he has ever asked of us, of me, and Spinnock Durav, and so many others, he has given us in return. Each and every time. This ... this is his secret. Don't you understand, High Priestess? We served the one who served us.
Steven Erikson
#30. What I was is not what I am. Two men, identical faces, but different eyes. In what they have seen, in what they reflect upon the world.
Steven Erikson
#31. It was pathetic, the raving accusations of an ego blind to its own lies.
Steven Erikson
#32. A civilization for ever within easy reach of a blade had little to boast about.
Steven Erikson
#34. 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.
Steven Erikson
#36. The only consistent narrative we possess is one that we share with every other life-form: we are born, we live, and then we die.
Steven Erikson
#37. The closest held secret is the one that never sours with age.
Steven Erikson
#38. Indolence takes many forms, but it comes to every civilization that has outlived its will. You know that as well as I. In this case it was an indolence characterized by a pursuit of knowledge, a frenzied search for answers to everything, no matter the value of such answers.
Steven Erikson
#39. There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived.
Steven Erikson
#40. Retribution seen in natural catastrophes is manufactured by all too eager
and all too pious people, each one convinced the world will end but spare them and them
alone. But we all know, the world is inherited by the obnoxious, not the righteous
Steven Erikson
#41. Too many strive for the unachievable, and this pursuit consumes them. They rush frantic and desperate and so reveal weakness in the face of sadness. More than weakness, in fact. It is in truth a kind of cowardice, that which espouses an evasive disposition as if it were a virtue.
Steven Erikson
#42. The courage of husbands is directly proportionate to the proximity of the wife.
Steven Erikson
#43. The drunk answers every assault with smirking equanimity,' observed Haut, pouring his cup full again. 'All reasoned words thud like pebbles in the sand. Made immune, I imbibe the nectar of the gods.
Steven Erikson
#44. I've spoken often of how the fantasy genre is able to, with the greatest freedom among all the genres, take a metaphor and make it real. But of course that's only the starting point.
Steven Erikson
#45. Eventually every man reaches a point where every memory is unwelcome
Steven Erikson
#46. What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They're allowed to think.
Steven Erikson
#47. He'd stood amidst the ranks more than once, sensing the soldiers alongside him seeking and finding that place in the mind, cold and silent, the place where husbands, fathers, wives and mothers became killers. And practice made it easier, each time. Until it becomes a place you never leave.
Steven Erikson
#48. Glass is sand and sand is glass!
The ant dancing blind as blind ants do
on the lip of the rim and the rim of the lip.
White in the night and grey in the day-
smiling spider she never smiles but smile she does
though the ant never sees, blind as it is-
and now was!
Steven Erikson
#49. The past is all patterns, and those patterns remain beneath our feet, even as the stars above reveal their own patterns - for the stars we gaze upon each night are naught but an illusion from the past.
Steven Erikson
#50. A soul carries a vessel of courage. It cannot be refilled. Every thing that takes from it leaves less behind.
Steven Erikson
#51. There was, in his mind, no truer measure of stupidity than to imagine that the world could be reduced to two sides,
Steven Erikson
#52. To hide weakness behind bluster was to hide nothing at all.
Steven Erikson
#53. But the world had its layers. To the simple it offered simplicity. To the wise it offered profundity. And the only measure of courage worth acknowledging was found in accepting where one stood in that scheme - in hard, unwavering honesty, no matter how humbling.
Steven Erikson
#54. Now get going. You'll find a way of calm through."
"And you, Mael?"
"I'll drop in later. I've things for you to do, Withal. But for now," he faced inland, "I'm going to beat a god senseless.
Steven Erikson
#55. Behold, my friends, I am justice.
And when at last we meet, you will not like it.
And if irony awakens in you at the end, see me weep with these tears of jade, and answer with a smile.
If you've the courage.
Have you, my friends, the courage?
Steven Erikson
#56. [ ... ] knowing his mood was miserable from lack of sleep [ ... ], knowing he was unfair [ ... ], knowing all these things but unable to stop the dark torrent of his thoughts.
Steven Erikson
#57. People were the same everywhere, no matter what lofty vows they proclaimed. Help was given only in the hope of its being reciprocated. Expectations of reward lurked behind every act of altruism.
Steven Erikson
#58. And we're not talking mild snoring, either. Imagine being chained to the floor of a cave, with the tide crashing in, louder, louder, louder -
Steven Erikson
#59. My God," Hadrian said. "They finally did it! All those oh-so-cute-my-cuddly-kitten-here's-a-pic bastard! They finally went and did it!
Steven Erikson
#60. His agonized scream rode the cascading waves of power as they swept across the terrace.
Steven Erikson
#61. But Hood was not yet done with her. He swung her up again, spun and once more hammered her onto the stone. 'I have had,' the Jaghut roared, and into the air she went again, and down once more, 'enough' - with a sob the crushed, broken body was yanked from the ground again - 'of- 'your- justice!
Steven Erikson
#62. He rubbed at his face, as if seeking to awaken the right words from muscle, blood and bone.
Steven Erikson
#63. There is only one thing worse than arguing with a drunk,' Faradan Sort said, 'and that's arguing with a drunk who's right.
Steven Erikson
#64. Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.
Steven Erikson
#66. Rhizan gathered in writhing clumps at his hands and feet,
Steven Erikson
#67. We are all gripped in madness. I have never seen the like nor heard of such a thing - gods, what we have become ...
Steven Erikson
#68. No one lets dead poets lie in peace. We are like old meat on a crowded dinner table.
Steven Erikson
#69. Precipitous creature,' Kruppe muttered, reaching for the mug of wine the man had left behind. 'Ah, look at this,' he said, frowning up at Crokus, 'nigh two-thirds full. A potential waste!' Kruppe drank it down in one swift gulp, then sighed. 'Said potential averted, Dessembrae be praised.
Steven Erikson
#71. There were no ugly gods. Their first expression of power was in the reshaping of their selves, into forms lovely to behold.
Steven Erikson
#72. All too often cowardice wears the habit of wounded pride.' Anomander
Steven Erikson
#73. Ah, Fist, it's the curse of history that those who should read them, never do.
Steven Erikson
#74. I'd much rather you assumed for yourself a higher rank than mere menial labourer for the duration of this great adventure.'
He paused. 'You wish me to strike heroic poses against the sunset, Lady Envy?'
'Indeed!
Steven Erikson
#75. To mourn is to feel a flower's slow death, hill bear. To bed a man is to recall the flower's bright glory.
Steven Erikson
#76. Brys, how big do you want to make your escort?"
"Two brigades and two battalions, sire."
"Is that reasonable?" Tehol asked, looking around.
"I have no idea," Janath replied. "Bugg?"
"I'm no general, my Queen."
"We need an expert opinion, then," said Tehol. "Brys?
Steven Erikson
#77. The creature spun, tumbling, then twisted round to face its attacker, rage blazing in its skull.
Steven Erikson
#78. The prince is blind to subtlety. He knows his own ignorance and stupidity so is ever suspicious of others, especially when they say things he does not understand. One cannot negotiate when dragged in the wake of emotions.
Steven Erikson
#79. No one could claim that Preda Norlo Trumb was the most perceptive of individuals, and the half-dozen Letherii guards under his command, who stood in a twitching clump behind the Preda, were now faced with the very real possibility that Trumb's stupidity was going to cost them their lives.
Steven Erikson
#80. The panic that had filled him was subsiding, perhaps having burned itself out.
Steven Erikson
#81. Knowledge is not enough. It never is. It's the capacity to do something with that knowledge. To do it perfectly. Absolute timing. With devastating consequences.
Steven Erikson
#83. History meant nothing, because the only continuity was human stupidity.
Steven Erikson
#84. If it is peace you seek then you need only turn and walk away. Leave."
"To leave here is to arrive elsewhere. I cannot retreat from disorder, for it shall surely follow. Peace must be asserted where one finds oneself. Only when discord is resolved will there be peace.
Steven Erikson
#85. The wine is gone. Only sour wine fumes remain. Drunkenness pretends to resolution.
Steven Erikson
#86. THE VEIL OF CIVILISATION was thin indeed, so easily torn away to reveal depravity waiting beneath, waiting, as such things always did, for the first hint of turbulence.
Steven Erikson
#87. What see you in the horizon's bruised smear
That cannot be blotted out
By your raised hand?
Steven Erikson
#88. Paran flicked his gaze to his weapon, glared back up and around at the warriors, then his eyes returned to Chance. And stayed there.
Steven Erikson
#89. He had been born into debt, as had his father and his father before him. Indenture and slavery were two words for the same thing.
Steven Erikson
#91. Extraordinary, how single lives just fold into the whole mess, over and over again, all caught up in the greater swirl. Spinning round and round, and ever downward, it seems. Ever downward. Fools, all of us, to think we can swim clear of that current.
Steven Erikson
#92. What are gods, after all, if not the perfect victims?
Steven Erikson
#93. Look, Tammy, it's part of our mandate. We barrel in, we fuck things up, and then we walk away feeling good about our selves.
Steven Erikson
#94. Now, invite me in, before I lose my temperature.'
'Temper, you mean.'
'No, temperature. It's getting chilly.
Steven Erikson
#95. Beak, can you hold your own in what's to come?'
A low murmuring reply: 'Yes sir. You'll see. Everyone will because you're all my friends and friends are important. The most important thing in the world. And I'll show you.
Steven Erikson
#96. The role of artists is to attend the funerals. They are the pall-bearers of failure, and every wonder they raise high in celebration harks back to a time already dead.
Steven Erikson
#97. Kill, thought Ditch, nodding, kill, yes, I understand. I do. Kill, for her. Kill. And he found that the word itself, yes, the word itself, knew how to smile.
Steven Erikson
#98. Emerging onto the main level, Mappo and Fiddler were accosted with the harsh echo of a shouting voice, bouncing down the hallway from the altar chamber.
Steven Erikson
#100. The wounded will wound / and every hurt is remembered.
Steven Erikson
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