Steven Erikson
I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.Collection: Compassion
He was not a modest man. Contemplating suicide, he summoned a dragon.' Gothos' FollyCollection: Suicide
A civilization can easily drown in what it knows as in what doesn't know. Consider,' he continued, Gotho's Folly. Gotho's curse was in being too aware - of everything. Every permutation, every potential. Enough to poison every scan he cast on the world. It availed him naught, and worse, he was aware of even that.Collection: Civilization
Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.Collection: Responsibility
I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast.Collection: Differences
Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.Collection: Expectations
Kallor said: "I walked this land when the T'lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?" "Yes," said Caladan Brood, "you never learn."Collection: Strong
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.Collection: Brother
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.Collection: Kings
War has its necessities...and I have always understood that. Always known the cost. But, this day, by my own hand, I have realized something else. War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity. Speak not of just causes, worthy goals. We are takers of life.Collection: War
Not even the lichen of the tundra is at peace. All is struggle, all is war for dominance. Those who lose, vanish. -And we’re no different you’re saying- We are, soldier. We possess the privilege of choice. The gift of foresight. Though often we come too late in acknowledging responsibilities….Collection: War
Paradise belonged to the innocent. Which was why it was and would ever remain empty. And that is what makes it a paradise.Collection: Paradise
Ah, Fist, it’s the curse of history that those who should read them, never do.Collection: Fists
Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.Collection: Allies
Power is violence, its promise, its deed. Power cares nothing for reason, nothing for justice, nothing for compassion. It is, in fact, the singular abnegation of these things - once the cloak of deceits is stripped away, this one truth is revealed.Collection: Compassion
The tiger is humbled by memories of prey.Collection: Memories
You are very easily exasperated, my dear. If you're a leaf trembling on a wide, deep river, relax and ride the current. It's always worked for me, I assure you.Collection: Rivers
All they get around here is stories. Stories don't make you bleed. Stories don't make you go hungry, don't give you sore feet. When you're young smelling of pigshit and convinced there ain't a weapon in all the damn world that's going to hurt you, all stories do is make you want to be part of them.Collection: Hurt
Children were meant to be gifts. The physical manifestation of love between a man and a woman. And for that love all manner of sacrifice could be borne.Collection: Children
The Wickans know that the gift of power is never free. They know enough not to envy the chosen among them, for power is never a game, nor are glittering standards raised to glory and wealth. They disguise nothing in trappings, and so we all see what we'd rather not, that power is cruel, hard as iron and bone, and thrives on destruction. ~ Deadhouse GatesCollection: Games
The only death I fear is dying ignorant.Collection: Ignorant
"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."Collection: Roots
Such is the vastness of his genius that he can outwit even himself.Collection: Genius
Your brain works with all the subtlety of a malicious child.Collection: Children
You always fashioned yourself as the Empire's harshest Fist, didn't you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty's a virtue.Collection: Fists
"Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?" The Imass shrugged before replying. "I think of futility, Adjunct." "Do all Imass think about futility?" "No. Few think at all." "Why is that?" The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her. "Because, Adjunct, it is futile."Collection: Thinking
What matter the colour of the collar around a man's neck, if the chains linked to them were identical?Collection: Men
Gods, I wish the world was full of passive women.He thougt for a moment longer, then scowled. On second thoughts, what a nightmare that'd be. It's the job of a man to fan the spark into flames, not quench it.Collection: Jobs
If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in? That village, that city, that life? We are desperate with our dreams. What - oh, what - does that say?Collection: Dream
Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain. In the face of that, murder itself was surcease: it was quick, and it ended the anguish and despair of a life without hope.Collection: Pain
Curious,” Bauchelain said. “What is it you wish us to do for you?” “Usurp the king,” Imid Factalo said. “Usurp, as in depose.” “Right.” “Depose, as in remove.” “Yes.” “Remove, as in kill.Collection: Kings
One day, perhaps, you will see for yourself that regrets are as nothing. The value lies in how they are answered.Collection: Regret
It is one thing to lead by example with half a dozen soldiers at your back. It is wholly another with ten thousand.Collection: Soldier
Ah, Meese has brought us her finest goblets! A moment, whilst Kruppe sweeps out cobwebs, insect husks and other assorted proofs of said goblets' treasured value.Collection: Cobwebs
Oh yes, I have learned much from Tremorlor, and so assume a like strategy. Silence, a faint mocking smile suggesting I know more than I do, an air of mystery, yes, and fell knowledge. None could guess my confusion, my host of deluded illusions and elusive delusions!Collection: Air
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.Collection: Men
So you say, with your shiny hair and pouty lips - and those breasts - just wait till you start dropping whelps, they'll be at your ankles one day, big as they are - not the whelps, the breasts. The whelps will be in your hair - no, not the shiny hair on your head, well, yes, that hair, but only as a manner of speech.Collection: Hair
The stars, they are as the sun. Each star. Every star. And those spheres- they are worlds, realms, each one different yet the same.Collection: Stars
You’re loitering, citizen.” “Actually, I was hesitating.Collection: Citizens
I hear Seven Cities natives grow fruit just so they can eat the larvae in them.Collection: Cities
Morality was not relative, they claimed, nor even existing solely in the realm of human condition. No, they proclaimed morality was an imperative of all life, a natural law that was neither the brutal acts of beasts nor the lofty ambitions of humanity, but something other, something unassailableCollection: Ambition
A celebration of insignificance, Is that all we are in the end? And one day I’ll just be one more of those faces, frozen in death and wonderCollection: One Day
First in , Last out. Motto of the bridgeburnersCollection: Lasts
Kallor said: ‘I walked this land when the T’lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?’ ‘Yes,’ said Caladan Brood, ’you never learn.Collection: Strong