Steven Erikson

Quotes

1. Not that freedom ensured happiness. Indeed, to be free was to live in absence. Of responsibilities, of loyalties, of the pressures that expectation imposed.

2. 

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

3. 

   "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."

4. 

   "You leave me without hope," Brys said.

   "I am sorry for that. Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. For you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge."

5. 

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

6. 

   “The dead never interrupt,” said the mason, “they but arrive.”

   p. 329

7. 

   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.

   p. 446

8. 

   Lorn stared at Tool. “Was that an attempt at humor?” she asked.

   The T’lan Imass adjusted his helmet. “That depends on your mood, Adjunct.”

   p. 325

9. 

   “The Empress expects obedience of her servants, and demands loyalty.”

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

   p. 90

10. 

    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.

11. 

    I look at you and I see a man because that’s what men are capable of—I don’t hunt for excuses because I don’t like to think that that’s how nasty we can get. We look at Sorry and we see reflections of ourselves. Hood take it, if we don’t like what we see.

    p. 124

12. 

    The power he commanded insisted upon subjects. Strength was ever relative, and he could not dominate without the company of the dominated.

    p. 555