Steven Erikson Quotes

Hello, Capustan. The Bridgeburners have arrived.

Love had no limbs at all. It could neither run nor grasp, couldn’t even push away though it tried and tried. Left lying on the ground, unable to move, crying like an abandoned baby – people could steal it; people could kick it until it bled, or nudge it down a hillside or over a cliff. They could smother it, drown it, set it on fire until it was ashes and charred bone. They could teach it how to want and want for ever, no matter how much it was fed. And sometimes, all love was, was something to be dragged behind on a chain, growing heavier with each step, and when the ground opened up under it, why, it pulled a person backwards and down, down to a place where the pain never ended.

I am a caster of nets. Tyrants and emperors rise and fall. Civilizations burgeon then die, but there are always casters of nets. And tillers of the soil, and herders in the pastures. We are where civilization begins, and when it ends, we are there to begin it again.

Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!’ The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. ‘Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?

History meant nothing, because the only continuity was human stupidity. Oh, there were moments of greatness, of bright deeds, but how long did the light of such glory last? From one breath to the next, aye, and no more than that. No more than that. As for the rest, kick through the bones and wreckage for they are what remain, what lasts until all turn to dust.

Convergence,” Tool said. “Power ever draws other power.

The closest held secret is the one that never sours with age.

He reached out and laid a hand against Quick Ben's brow, then grunted. 'He's on his way back. It's protective sorcery that's keeping him asleep.' 'Can you speed things up?' 'Sure.' The healer slapped the wizard. 'Quick Ben's eyes snapped open.

The act of taking offence becomes a weapon, and its wielder feels empowered by the false indignation.

When robbed, the rich cry out for protection and prosecution. When stealing, they expect the judiciary to look the other way.

He is strong enough to stand exposed, revealing all that is vulnerable within him. He is brave enough to invite you ever closer. If you hurt him, he will withdraw, as he must, and that path to him will be thereafter for ever sealed. But he begins with the gift of himself. What the other does with it defines the future of that particular relationship.

Rake was an atmosphere, a heart-thudding, terror-threaded presence no-one could ignore, much less escape. Violence, antiquity, sombre pathos, and darkest horror – the Son of Darkness was a gelid eddy in immortality’s current,

Memory did not let go; it remained the net dragged in one's wake, with all sorts of strange things snarled in the knotted strands.

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

To achieve peace, destruction is delivered. To give the gift of freedom, one promises eternal imprisonment. Adjudication obviates the need for justice. This is a studied, deliberate embrace of diametric opposition. It is a belief in balance, a belief asserted with the conviction of religion. But in this case, the proof of a god’s power lies not in the cause but in the effect. Accordingly, in this world and in all others, proof is achieved by action, and therefore all action — including the act of choosing inaction — is inherently moral. No deed stands outside the moral context. At the same time, the most morally perfect act is the one taken in opposition to what has occurred before.