Steven Erikson Quotes

Courting is the art of growing like mould on the one you want.

"Write the following: "Private missive, from Lieutenant Master-Sergeant Field Quartermaster Pores, to Fist Kindly. Warmest salutations and congratulations on your promotion, sir. As one might observe from your advancement and, indeed, mine, cream doth rise, etc. In as much as I am ever delighted in corresponding with you, discussing all maner of subjects in all possible idioms, alas, this subject is rather more official in nature. In short, we are faced with a crisis of the highest order. Accordignly, I humbly seek your advice and would suggest we arrange a most private meeting at the earliest convenience. Yours affectionately, Pores." Got that, Himble?'
'Yes sir'
'Please read it back to me.'
'"Pores to Kindly meet in secret when?"'
'Excellent, Dispatch at once, Himble"

The curse of climbing is discovering how great the distance yet to climb.

the more intelligent and perceptive the individual, the less happy they generally are. The cost of seeing things as they are, I expect.

"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."

Conviction is a fist of stone at the heart of all things. Its form is shaped by sure hands, the detritus quickly swept from view. It is built to withstand, built to defy challenge, and when cornered it fights without honour. There is nothing more terrible than conviction.

He had been born into debt, as had his father and his father before him. Indenture and slavery were two words for the same thing.

Cultures tend to invite the dominance of one over the other, as a means by which an individual succeeds and advances or, conversely, fails and falls. A culture dominated by attackers — and one in which the qualities of attacking are admired, often overtly encouraged — tends to breed people with a thick skin, which nonetheless still serves to protect a most brittle self. Thus the wounds bleed but stay well hidden beneath the surface. Cultures favouring the defender promote thin skin and quickness to take offence — its own kind of aggression, I am sure you see. The culture of attackers seeks submission and demands evidence of that submission as proof of superiority over the subdued. The culture of defenders seeks compliance through conformity, punishing dissenters and so gaining the smug superiority of enforcing silence, and from silence, complicity.

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.

All that he has ever asked of us, of me, and Spinnock Durav, and so many others, he has given us in return. Each and every time. This... this is his secret. Don’t you understand, High Priestess? We served the one who served us.

I admit,’ said Spite, ‘to a certain melancholy when visiting vibrant cities, as is this Darujhistan. A long life teaches one just how ephemeral is such thriving glory. Why, I have come again upon cities I knew well in the age of their greatness, only to find crumbled walls, dust and desolation.’
Cutter bared his teeth and said, ‘Darujhistan has stood for two thousand years and it will stand for another two thousand-even longer.’
Spite nodded. ’Precisely.

You would choose only the worthy to embrace, Shield Anvil? Then what you do is not an embrace, sir. It is a reward.

Giving advice to a child is like flinging sand at an obsidian wall. Nothing sticks. The brutal truth is that we each suffer our own lessons — they can’t be danced round. They can’t be slipped past. You cannot gift a child with your scars — they arrive like webs, constricting, suffocating, and that child will struggle and strain until they break. No matter how noble your intent, the only scars that teach them anything are the ones they earn themselves.

The gods have been kicking us around for a long time. When do we say enough?'
'And in their absence, High Fist, will we manage things any better?'
'No,' Paran said, walking past him 'but at least then we won't have the option of blaming someone else.

In that Malazan Book of the Fallen, the historians will write of our suffering, and they will speak of it as the suffering of those who served the Crippled God. As something … fitting. And for our seeming fanaticism they will dismiss all that we were, and think only of what we achieved. Or failed to achieve.
And in so doing, they will miss the whole fucking point.