Steven Erikson quotes - page 4

The mewling, petty acts,” he'd say, "of a short-lived and short-sighted species, Crokus, can do nothing to mar the Great Cycles of Life. (Steven Erikson)
Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal's hands. Such is the only end to immortality. View quote
Steven Erikson
The dead never interrupt,” said the mason, "they but arrive. View quote
Steven Erikson
If dreams of flying are the last hope of freedom, I will pray for wings with my last breath. View quote
Steven Erikson
If one could always choose the right question, then every answer could be as obvious. View quote
Steven Erikson
... 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. View quote
Steven Erikson
We are sickened by the unknown, but knowledge can prove poisonous. View quote
Steven Erikson
Paran shook his head, his only surprise the realization that nothing surprised him anymore. View quote
Steven Erikson
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. View quote
Steven Erikson
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? View quote
Steven Erikson
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.”. (Steven Erikson)
The Empress expects obedience of her servants, and demands loyalty.” "Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round. View quote
Steven Erikson
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. View quote
Steven Erikson
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. View quote
Steven Erikson
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. View quote
Steven Erikson
As for presumption, I honestly couldn't care less. Truth can't be danced around, not out here, not now, not ever again. View quote
Steven Erikson
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. View quote
Steven Erikson
To grieve is the gift of the living - a gift so many of our kin have long lost. View quote
Steven Erikson
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. View quote
Steven Erikson
The power he commanded insisted upon subjects. Strength was ever relative, and he could not dominate without the company of the dominated. View quote
Steven Erikson
Hunger for vengeance poisoned the soul. (Steven Erikson)
You cannot fight unreason, and as these dead multitudes will tell you - are telling you right now - certitude is the enemy. View quote
Steven Erikson
Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgement, the weapon you wield delivers - and let us not be coy here - naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause. View quote
Steven Erikson
Art is the language of the tormented, but the world is blind to that, for ever blind. View quote
Steven Erikson
Killers among your kind, among my kind, are just that - the savagery of beasts mated with intelligence, or what passes for intelligence. They dwell in a murky world, sir, confuse and fearful, stained dark with envy and malice. And in the end, they die as they lived. Frightened and alone, with every memory of power revealed as illusion, as farce. View quote
Steven Erikson