Steven Erikson

Quotes

1. An army that waits is soon an army at war with itself.

2. 

   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.

3. 

   "Keep a watch out, fools! There are things out there and you know what happens when things arrive!"

4. 

   But now Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart.

5. 

   "What war is this?"

   "A pointless one."

   "They are all pointless Denier. Subjugation and defeat breed resentment and hatred, and such things cannot be bribed away."

   "Unless the spirit of the defeated is crushed," Trull said.

6. 

   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 behind one now stretches before him.

7. 

   From the sun-drenched south slopes of Gris, where grow the finest grapes this world has seen. Is mine an informed opinion, you are wondering? Most assuredly so, lass, since I hold a majority interest in said vineyards —

8. 

   "Indeed Bugg. is it because, do you think, at the human core, we are naught but liars and cheats?"

   "Probably."

   "With no hope of ever overcoming our instinctive nastiness?"

   "Hard to say. How have we done so far?"

9. 

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

10. 

    You cannot fight unreason, and as these dead multitudes will tell you — are telling you right now — certitude is the enemy.

11. 

    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.

12. 

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