Steven Erikson citations

Page 4

“If dreams of flying are the last hope of freedom, I will pray for wings with my last breath.”

“If one could always choose the right question, then every answer could be as obvious.”

“… In elegant remoteness, she arrives like a work of high art, and you may well desire to edge ever closer, seeking flaws in the maker's hand, but the closer you get, the more she blurs before your eyes.”

“We are sickened by the unknown, but knowledge can prove poisonous.”

“But we're different from hawks and wolves, Ville. We can actually figure out the consequences of what we do, and that makes us… oh, I don't know the word…'
'Culpable?' Rint suggested.
'Yes, that's the word all right.”

“Paran shook his head, his only surprise the realization that nothing surprised him anymore.”

“I can see your reasons, my love. But won’t you get thirsty?’ — Inscription found beneath capstone of household well, Lakefront District, Darujhistan”

“The tiger is humbled by memories of prey.”

“T'riss sat down opposite the Warden, her expression thoughtful. 'Is civilisation nothing but an illusion, then?'
'Crowd control.'
'Excuse me?'
'That's all civilisation is, T'riss. A means by which we manage the proliferation of our kind. It increases in complexity the more of us there are. Laws keeps us muzzled and punishment delivers the necessary message when those laws are broken. Civilizations in decline are notable when certain of their members escape justice, and do so with impunity.”

“Words were no gift, said Haut. They were tangled nets snaring all who ventured into their midst, until an entire people could hang helpless, choking on their own arguments, even as dissolution closed in on all sides.
The Jaghut had rejected that path. Defying the eternal plea for communication among peoples, in the name of understanding, peace or whatever, they had stopped talking, even with each other. And their city was abandoned, home now to a single soul, the Lord of Hate, the one who had laid bare the brutal truth of the future awaiting them all.”

“Do not let the title of scholar, or poet, or lord, intimidate you overmuch. More importantly, do not delude yourself into imagining that such men and women are loftier, or somehow cleverer or purer of intgrity or ideal than you or the other commoner. We live in a world of facades, but the grins behind them are all wretched.”

“Prediction had become a privilege now lost to her. Never mind the outside world, she could not even guess her own actions, or the course of her thoughts.
Was this the true nature of emotion? she wondered. The great defier of logic, of control—the whims of being human. What lay ahead?”

“Now, it's just occurred to me that we're missing something crucial. Ah, yes, an artist! Bugg, have we a court artist? We need an artist! Find us an artist! Nobody move!”

“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.”

“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?”

“A title as meaningless as the woman bearing it. The Empress—just another face she’d seen somewhere before, a mask behind which someone hid from mortality.
“No use hiding,” she whispered, frowning down at the dead leaves and branches around her. “No use.””

““The Empress expects obedience of her servants, and demands loyalty.”
“Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.””

““Since when is speaking the truth presumptuous?”
“You are young, aren’t you?””

“She walked alongside him, saying nothing. Thinking. At last, she sighed. 'It is said that only one's will can fight against chaos, that no other weapons are possible.”

“Have any of these thoughts been my own? Look at me—my every move seems a desperate search for someone to blame, always someone else. I’ve made being a tool of a god an excuse, a justification for not thinking, for simply reacting. And others have died for it.”

“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?””

“Celebrating Gedderone’s Rite of Spring shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid the pressures of reality. It wasn’t just a harmless escape: it was a means of delaying the probable and making it inevitable.”

“As for presumption, I honestly couldn’t care less. Truth can’t be danced around, not out here, not now, not ever again.”

“I think I understand. Before there can be disdain, there must be pride.
One day I will find something to be proud of, and then I will find this taste of disdain, and see if it suits me. Should I not think this, being my father's son?
And yet, I do not. Pride needs no claws, no scaled armour about itself. Not every virtue must be a weapon.
These thoughts are my own. I will not crush them.”

“Memories belong in the soil, in stone, in wind. They are the land's unseen meaning, such that touches the soul of all who would look — truly look — upon it. Touches, in faintest whisper, old, almost shapeless echoes — to which a mortal life adds its own.”

“Should you ever outrun the guilt within your past, Sorceress, you will have outrun your soul. When it finds you again it will kill you.”

“To grieve is the gift of the living — a gift so many of our kin have long lost”

“In the empty eyes of this child, he’d seen the withering of his own soul. The reflection had been unblemished, with no imperfections to challenge the truth of what he saw.”

“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.”