Steven Erikson Quotations

All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture, and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear. So, I have plenty of sympathy for self-defense mechanisms, especially among artists.

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.

The idea that an author can extricate her or his own ongoing life experience from the tale being written is a conceit of very little worth.

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.

Believe it or not, friendships are difficult to write in fiction. They can easily come across as forced, particularly if they involve too much explication and too many overt gestures of affection.

A story invites both writer and reader into a kind of superficial ease: we want to slide along, pleasingly entertained, lost in the fictional dream.

I have to feel what I'm writing, right down to the core.

The heart of wisdom is tolerance.

Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.

You must dismantle your sources, lest you do nothing but ape the prejudices of others

More than one philosopher has claimed that we ever remain children, far beneath the indurated layers that make up the armour of adulthood. Armour encumbers, restricts the body and soul within it. But it also protects. Blows are blunted. Feelings lose their edge, leaving us to suffer naught but a plague of bruises, and, after a time, bruises fade.

Not even the lichen of the tundra is at peace. All is struggle, all is war for dominance. Those who lose, vanish. -And we’re no different you’re saying- We are, soldier. We possess the privilege of choice. The gift of foresight. Though often we come too late in acknowledging responsibilities….

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.

Ben Adaephon Delat," Pearl said plaintively, "see the last who comes. You send me to my death." "I know," Quick Ben whispered. "Flee, then. I will hold them enough to ensure your escape no more." Quick Ben sank down past the roof. Before he passed from sight Pearl spoke again. "Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?" "Yes" he replied softly, then pivoted and dropped down into darkness.

The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.

The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.

The only death I fear is dying ignorant.

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.

Survivors do not mourn together. They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation. None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve. To face death is to stand alone.

No purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine.

Paradise belonged to the innocent. Which was why it was and would ever remain empty. And that is what makes it a paradise.

Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.

For we are all bound in stories, and as the years pile up they turn to stone, layer upon layer, building our lives.

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.

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.

I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast.

I love you still, but with your death I succumbed to a kind of infatuation. I convinced myself that what you and I had, so very briefly, was of far vaster and deeper import than it truly was. Of all the weapons we chose to turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one's own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions.

Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity - the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us. But if that is too dire , let's call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.

Soldiers are issued armour for their flesh and bones, but they must fashion their own for their souls. Piece by piece. (Itkovian)

Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.

Children were meant to be gifts. The physical manifestation of love between a man and a woman. And for that love all manner of sacrifice could be borne.

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?

All that we were has led us to where we are, but tells us little of where we’re going. Memories are a weight you can never shrug off.

Your brain works with all the subtlety of a malicious child.

The tiger is humbled by memories of prey.

A celebration of insignificance, Is that all we are in the end? And one day I’ll just be one more of those faces, frozen in death and wonder

Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?

Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain. In the face of that, murder itself was surcease: it was quick, and it ended the anguish and despair of a life without hope.

Morality was not relative, they claimed, nor even existing solely in the realm of human condition. No, they proclaimed morality was an imperative of all life, a natural law that was neither the brutal acts of beasts nor the lofty ambitions of humanity, but something other, something unassailable

Detachment is a flaw, not a virtue-don’t you realize that?

Do mortal fools still measure the increments leading to their deaths, wagering pleasures against costs, persisting in the delusion that deeds have value, that the world and all the gods sit in judgment over every decision made or not made?

Kallor said: 'I walked this land when the T'lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?' 'Yes,' said Caladan Brood, 'you never learn.

So you say, with your shiny hair and pouty lips - and those breasts - just wait till you start dropping whelps, they'll be at your ankles one day, big as they are - not the whelps, the breasts. The whelps will be in your hair - no, not the shiny hair on your head, well, yes, that hair, but only as a manner of speech.

And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo. The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets in the City of Blue Fire.

Such is the vastness of his genius that he can outwit even himself.

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.

First in , Last out. Motto of the bridgeburners

What matter the colour of the collar around a man's neck, if the chains linked to them were identical?

Ah, Meese has brought us her finest goblets! A moment, whilst Kruppe sweeps out cobwebs, insect husks and other assorted proofs of said goblets' treasured value.

It is an extraordinary act of courage,' said Tulas Shorn, 'to come to know a stranger's pain.

Desires should never be justified,' Tehol said, wagging a finger. 'All you end up doing is illuminating the hidden reasons by virtue of their obvious absence.

We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And, indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again." ~Fiddler, pg. 558

One day, perhaps, you will see for yourself that regrets are as nothing. The value lies in how they are answered.

I hear Seven Cities natives grow fruit just so they can eat the larvae in them.

The Wickans know that the gift of power is never free. They know enough not to envy the chosen among them, for power is never a game, nor are glittering standards raised to glory and wealth. They disguise nothing in trappings, and so we all see what we'd rather not, that power is cruel, hard as iron and bone, and thrives on destruction. ~ Deadhouse Gates

War has its necessities...and I have always understood that. Always known the cost. But, this day, by my own hand, I have realized something else. 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.

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.

Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?' The Imass shrugged before replying. 'I think of futility, Adjunct.' 'Do all Imass think about futility?' 'No. Few think at all.' 'Why is that?' The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her. 'Because Adjunct, it is futile.

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...

And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-pettalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.

Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course.

There's little value in seeking to find reasons for why people do what they do, or feel the way they feel. Hatred is a most pernicious thing, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself." "With words.

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

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.

I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.

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.

He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony. Imagine a world without such souls. Yes, it should have been harder to do.

Shake your fist all you want but dead is dead

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.

I'll not deny I am impressed by your mastery of six warrens, Quick Ben. In retrospect, you should have held back on at least half of what you command." The man made to rise. "But, Bauchelain," the wizard replied, "I did.

You’re loitering, citizen.” “Actually, I was hesitating.

Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly." "I want to be a soldier. A hero." "You'll grow out of it.

Ah, Fist, it’s the curse of history that those who should read them, never do.

Curious,” Bauchelain said. “What is it you wish us to do for you?” “Usurp the king,” Imid Factalo said. “Usurp, as in depose.” “Right.” “Depose, as in remove.” “Yes.” “Remove, as in kill.

The notion of evil for its own sake strikes me as boring -- all these Dark Lords intent on creating wastelands packed with enslaved victims... for what?

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

Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.

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.

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

You are very easily exasperated, my dear. If you're a leaf trembling on a wide, deep river, relax and ride the current. It's always worked for me, I assure you.

When you've burned the bridges behind you, don't go starting a fire on the one in front of you.

Never, dear gods. Never mess with mortals.

You always fashioned yourself as the Empire’s harshest Fist, didn’t you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty’s a virtue…

I mean the only thing us dead soldiers got in common is that none of us was good enough or lucky enough to survive the fight. We're a host of failures.

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.

Name none of the fallen, for they stand 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.

We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned, T’lan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold. It must be given freely. In abundance.

The lesson of history is that no one learns.

It is one thing to lead by example with half a dozen soldiers at your back. It is wholly another with ten thousand.

The art of illusion is grace itself.

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!

What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think.

He was not a modest man. Contemplating suicide, he summoned a dragon.' Gothos' Folly

Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.

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.