Erikson Quotes & Sayings

Peace would settle on his soul. — Steven Erikson

She'd seen them them all before, those faces. She knew them all, knew the sound of their voices, sounds mired in human emotions, sounds clear and pure with thought, and sounds wavering in that chasm between the two. Is this, she wondered, my legacy? And one day I'll be just one more of those faces, frozen in death and wonder. — Steven Erikson

By the Lady's never-sucked teats!"
"Elas Sil!"
"Oh shut up! I'm a woman, I can curse about things like that. Wait, it's not as dark up ahead. Come on, and hasn't that baby of yours been asleep a long time? You sure it's not dead?"
"Wel, it peed on me halfway down that last corridor, and last I looked it was smiling."
"Huh. It ever amazes me women get talked into motherhood. — Steven Erikson

I am Crone, eldest of the Moon's Great Ravens, whose eyes have looked upon a hundred thousand years of human folly. Hence my tattered coat and broken beak as evidence of your indiscriminate destruction. I am but a winged witness of your eternal madness. — Steven Erikson

As he made his way back to his estate, Baruk recalled his lone meeting with Vorcan, only a few nights after her awakening. She had entered the chamber with her usual feline grace. The wounds she had borne were long healed and she had found a new set of clothes, loose and — Steven Erikson

Open to them your hand to the shore, watch them walk into the sea.
Press upon them all they need, see them yearn for all they want.
Gift to them the calm pool of words, watch them draw the sword.
Bless upon them the satiation of peace, see them starve for war.
Grant them darkness and they will lust for light.
Deliver to them death and hear them beg for life.
Beget life and they will murder your kin.
Be as they are and they will see you different.
Show wisdom and you are a fool.
The shore gives way to the sea.
And the sea, my friends,
Does not dream of you. — Steven Erikson

It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. — Steven Erikson

What see you in the horizon's bruised smear
That cannot be blotted out
By your raised hand? — Steven Erikson

I've been telling myself this was being alive. This here. This ... hiding. Wishing. Dreaming. Wanting. And all the while, what does anyone else see when they look at me? — Steven Erikson

We all dimly feel that our transient historical identity is the only chance in all eternity to be alive as a somebody in a here and a now. We, therefore, dread the possibility, of which we are most aware when deeply young or very old, that at the end we may find that we have lived the wrong life or not really lived at all. — Erik Erikson

A civilization for ever within easy reach of a blade had little to boast about. — Steven Erikson

We do naught but scratch the world, frail and fraught. Every vast drama of civilizations, of peoples with their certainties and gestures, means nothing, affects nothing. Life crawls on, ever on. — Steven Erikson

There were looks that killed, and then there were looks that conducted torture. — Steven Erikson

Trull watched Cotillion walk through the archway, and the Tiste Edur's gaze fell once more on the body of Ahlrada Ahn. As Shadowthrone approached Quick Ben, Trull climbed to his feet and made his way to where his friend was lying. Ahlrada Ahn. I do not understand you - I have never understood you - but I thank you nonetheless. I thank you ...
He stepped to the entranceway, looked out, and saw Cotillion, the Patron of Assassins, the god, sitting on a shelf of stone that had slipped down from one wall, sitting, alone, with his head in his hands. — Steven Erikson

What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They're allowed to think. — Steven Erikson

There would always be, he now understood, those for whom violence was righteous. Sudden — Steven Erikson

Rely not upon conscience,' Feren said, hearing the bitterness in her own voice and not caring. 'It ever kneels to necessity. — Steven Erikson

The dull, hazy light played along the polished blade like water. — Steven Erikson

Eventually every man reaches a point where every memory is unwelcome — Steven Erikson

Ublala Pung grunted a laugh. 'They'd never find her if it was a manhunt. — Steven Erikson

The creature spun, tumbling, then twisted round to face its attacker, rage blazing in its skull. — Steven Erikson

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. — Steven Erikson

Not even the dead know the end to war.
-Iskar Jarak — Steven Erikson

If you have ever talked about having an "identity crisis" you have psychologist Erik Erikson to thank for inventing the term. Erikson — Tom Butler-Bowdon

Picker studied Quick Ben as they trudged up yet another grass-backed hillside. 'You want us to get someone to carry you, Mage?'
Quick Ben wiped the sweat from his brow, shook his head. 'No, it's getting better. The Barghast spirits are thick here, and getting thicker. They're resisting the infection. I'll be all right, Corporal.'
'If you say so, only you're looking pretty rough to me.' And ain't that an understatement.
'Hood's warren is never a fun place.'
'That's bad news, Mage. What have we all got to look forward to, then?'
Quick Ben said nothing.
Picker scowled. 'That bad, huh? Well, that's just great. Wait till Antsy hears.'
The wizard managed a smile. 'You tell him news only to see him squirm, don't you?'
'Sure. The squad needs its entertainment, right? — Steven Erikson

Light exploded behind Felisin's eyes as she sprawled sideways. — Steven Erikson

Some were destined to walk alone through life, others not. — Steven Erikson

Lost ages are neither more nor less profound than the one we live in right now. — Steven Erikson

Too old to dream of perfection, perhaps, she had instead discovered a certain delicious appeal in flaws. — Steven Erikson

Take a thousand soldiers. Four hundred will stand in a fight but do nothing. Two hundred will run given the chance. Another hundred will get confused. That leaves three hundred you can count on. Your task in commanding that thousand is all down to knowing where to put that three hundred. — Steven Erikson

She was glad she'd missed the river of corpses that must have filled the city streets during the initial phase of clean-up - wagon after wagon groaning beneath the weight of crushed bodies, white flesh seared by fire and slashed by sword, rat-gnawed and raven-pecked - men, women, and children. — Steven Erikson

Rallick followed this by driving his other knife into Orr's chest. — Steven Erikson

Soldiers are issued armour for their flesh and bones, but they must fashion their own for their souls. Piece by piece. (Itkovian) — Steven Erikson

Discipline is the greatest weapon against the self-righteous. We must measure the virtue of our own controlled response when answering the atrocities of fanatics. And yet, let it not be claimed, in our own oratory of piety, that we are without our own fanatics; for the self-righteous breed wherever tradition holds, and most often when there exists the perception that tradition is under assault. Fanatics can be created as easily in an environment of moral decay (whether real or imagined) as in an environment of legitimate inequity or under the banner of a common cause.
Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgment, 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. — Steven Erikson

Who in there dreams is not omnipotent? — Steven Erikson

Seems Brood lost his temper.'
'Gods! With whom? Kallor? That bastard deserves-'
'Not Kallor, friend,' Coll growled. 'Make another guess - shouldn't take you long.'
Murillio groaned. 'Kruppe.'
'Hood knows he's stretched the patience of all of us at one time or another. only none of us was capable of splitting apart half the world and throwing new mountains skyward.'
'Did the little runt get himself killed? I can't believe-'
'Word is, he's come out unscathed. Typically. Complaining of the dust. No-one else was injured, either, though the warlord himself almost got his head kicked in by an angry mule.'
'Kruppe's mule? The one that sleeps when it walks?'
'Aye, the very one. — Steven Erikson

The Claw smiled. You have begun to learn, Paran. Never be too easy with the knowledge you possess. Words are like coin - it pays to hoard. — Steven Erikson

No soul can withstand the sun's bones of light and reason dims when darkness falls - so we shape barrows in the night for you and your kin." "Forgive my interruption, then," said I. "The dead never interrupt," said the mason, "they but arrive. — Steven Erikson

Numbness spread, allowing him to move his arms without the stabbing agony that had had him bathed in sweat over the last few hours. — Steven Erikson

One day I'll be a soldier," Ganoes said.
The man grunted. "Only if you fail at all else, son. Taking the sword is the last act of desperate men. Mark my words and find yourself a more worthy dream. — Steven Erikson

A sudden wind thrashed the treetops in the garden, sweeping down from the east. — Steven Erikson

Every artist was haunted by lies. Every artist fought to find truths. Every artist failed. Some turned back, embracing those comforting lies. Others took their own lives in despair. Still others drank themselves into the barrow, or poisoned everyone who drew near enough to touch, to wound. Some simply gave up, and wasted away in obscurity. A few discovered their own mediocrity, and this was the cruellest discovery of all. None found their way to the truths. — Steven Erikson

The beast that was civilization ever faced forward, and in making its present world it devoured the world to come. It was an appalling truth that one's own children could be so callously sacrificed to immediate comforts, yet this was so and it had always been so. — Steven Erikson

Obedience had never been deemed a pure virtue among the Tiste Andii. To follow must be an act born of deliberation, of clear-eyed, cogent recognition that the one to be followed has earned the privilege. So often, after all, formal structures of hierarchy stood in place of such personal traits and judgements. A title or rank did not automatically confer upon the one wearing it any true virtue, or even worthiness to the claim. Nimander — Steven Erikson

Some roads, once set out upon, reveal no possible path but forward. Every other track is blocked by snarls of thorns, steaming fissures or rearing walls of stone. What waits at the far end of the forward path is unknown, and since knowledge itself may prove a curse, the best course is simply to place one foot in front of the other, and think not at all of fate or the cruel currents of destiny. — Steven Erikson

But the ground rumbled with a growing, urgent thunder. — Steven Erikson

But the world had its layers. To the simple it offered simplicity. To the wise it offered profundity. And the only measure of courage worth acknowledging was found in accepting where one stood in that scheme - in hard, unwavering honesty, no matter how humbling. — Steven Erikson

Have a care, Sir Tucker, lest you find yourself in the stockades."
He scoffs and looks at Mr. Erikson. "She can't do that, can she? She's not the ruler of this class. Brady is."
...
"You could strip him of his title," suggests Brady, apparently not minding at all that I have usurped his throne. "Make him a serf."
"Yeah," says Christian. "Make him a serf. Being a serf blows."
As a serf, poor Christian has already been killed several times in our class. Aside from dying of the Black Plague on the first day, he's starved to death, had his hands cut off for stealing a loaf of bread, and been run down by his master's horse just for kicks. He's like Christian the fifth now. — Cynthia Hand

The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization's last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.'
- Traveller — Steven Erikson

We are all interludes in history, a drawn breath to make pause in the rush, and when we are gone, those breaths join the chorus of the wind. But who listens to the wind? — Steven Erikson

the mind that has convinced itself of its own superiority is incapable of humility, and in the absence of humility, it is incapable of growth. — Steven Erikson

Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course. — Steven Erikson

The wounded will wound / and every hurt is remembered. — Steven Erikson

What's with you all, anyway? You jam a stick up your own arse then preen at how tall and straight your standing. — Steven Erikson

Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly."
"I want to be a soldier. A hero."
"You'll grow out of it. — Steven Erikson

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. — Steven Erikson

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

Where are the days we once held
So loose in our sure hands?
When did these racing streams
Carve depthless caves beneath our feet?
And how did this scene stagger
And shift to make fraught our deft lies
In the places where youth will meet,
In the lands of our proud dreams?
Where, among all you before me,
Are the faces I once knew? — Steven Erikson

As if the only genuine gestures were the small ones, the ones devoid of an audience. As if true honesty belonged to solitude, since to be witnessed was to perform, and performance was inherently false since it invited expectation. — Steven Erikson

The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery. — Erik Erikson

Oh, we talk of progress, but what we really desire is the perpetuation of the present. With its seemingly endless excesses, its ravenous appetites. Ever the same rules, ever the same game. — Steven Erikson

Rhizan gathered in writhing clumps at his hands and feet, — Steven Erikson

Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light. — Steven Erikson

[T]he unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier
dead, melted wax
demands a response among the living ... a response no-one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous
as if cursed
while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold?
Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living. — Steven Erikson

High house shadow, and a knife in the dark. A new game's begun, or the old one's just turned. — Steven Erikson

Barring the necessary brains, of course," Kruppe said, "which is my true skill - though one such as Coll would never understand such abilities, alien as they are to him." Coll — Steven Erikson

There's no certainty in this, Baruk. That seems a fact particularly galling to you humans. — Steven Erikson

So you have found me and would know the tale. When a poet speaks of truth to another poet, waht hope has truth? Let me ask this, then. DOes one find memory in invention? Or will you find invention in memory? Wich bows in servitude befor the other? Will the measure of greatness be weighed solely in details? Perhaps so, if details make up the full weft of the world, if themes are nothing more than the coomposite of lists perfectly ordered and unerring rendered; and if I should kneel before invention, as if it were memory made perfect. — Steven Erikson

One day, I will be a child again. Carved toys will caper and dance from my mind, out across rock I will raise as mountains. Through grasses I will proclaim forests. For too long I have been trapped in this world of measures, proportions and scale. For too long I have known and understood the limits of what is possible, so cruel in rejecting all that can be imagined. In this way, friend, we are each of us not one but two lives, for ever locked in mortal combat, and from all things at hand, we make weapons.' - Hust Henarald — Steven Erikson

Lorn passed a hand over her eyes, then staggered back a step and reeled into the alley's shadows behind her. She slid down one wall into a sagging crouch. — Steven Erikson

To mourn is to feel a flower's slow death, hill bear. To bed a man is to recall the flower's bright glory. — Steven Erikson

A book of prophesy opens the doors.
You need a second book to close it.
Tanno Spiritwalker Kimloc — Steven Erikson

Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal's hands. Such is the only end to immortality. — Steven Erikson

No matter how hard you dance, not everyone will clap — Joan Erikson

A terrible burden seemed to drain from him. — Steven Erikson

A bludgeon of wives (surely that must be the plural assignation)! — Steven Erikson

Everything worth fighting for is gained without fighting. — Steven Erikson

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. — Steven Erikson

The way you 'take history' is also a way of 'making history.' — Erik Erikson

Then darkness swept in around him and he knew no more. — Steven Erikson

Young people of high school age can actually feel themselves changing. Progress is almost tangible. It's exciting. It stimulates more progress. Nevertheless, growth is not constant and smooth. Erik Erikson quotes an aphorism to describe the formless forming of it. I ain't what I ought to be. I ain't what I'm going to be, but I'm not what I was. — Stella Chess

The image was etching itself into Kalam's heart like acid into bronze. — Steven Erikson

Purest light will blind as surely as absolute darkness. — Steven Erikson

A celebration of insignificance. Is that all we are in the end? — Steven Erikson

Do you know its meaning, Caladan?'
'Pur Rakess Calas ne A'nom. Roughly, Strength in Standing Still.'
'A'nom', said the Son of Darkness, frowning.
'Perhaps,' the Azathanai said, 'as a babe, you were quick to stand.'
'And Rakess? Or Rake, as you would call me?'
'Only what I see in you, and what all others see in you. Strength.'
'I feel no such thing.'
'No one who is strong does. — Steven Erikson

If there was neither a time before nor a time after, then was not the moment of creation eternal and yet for ever instantaneous? — Steven Erikson

The ground is bare and hard / and will hold all secrets / and the sky cares not / for the games of those beneath it. — Steven Erikson

Let us face it: 'deep down' nobody in his right mind can visualize his own existence without assuming that he has always lived and will live hereafter. — Erik Erikson

Sites of battle held on to a madness, as if the blood that had soaked into the soil remembered pain and terror and held locked within it the echoes of screams and death cries. — Steven Erikson

The spokesman smiled. Ah, but, Kruppe, Gifts are not easily attained, nor are Virtues, nor are Doubts easily overcome, and Hungers are ever the impetus to climbing. — Steven Erikson

All right, shadow-priest, you've been spying - on what? What state secrets have you learned watching me groom these horses?'
'Only that they hate you, Daru. Every time your back was turned, they got ready to nip you - only you always seemed to step away at precisely the right moment-'
'Yes, I did, since I knew what they were intending. Each time.'
'Is this pride I hear? That you outwitted two horses? — Steven Erikson

What is there left to understand? Choice is an illusion. Freedom is conceit. The hands that reach out to guide your every step, your every thought, come not from the gods, for they are no less deluded than we - no, my friends, those hands come to each of us ... from each of us. — Steven Erikson

It is not enough to wish for a better world for the children. It is not enough to shield them with ease and comfort. Lostara Yil, if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future's world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned. — Steven Erikson

The city of the First Empire, the one upon the old island ... " Icarium waited. "Destroyed ... by your hand, Icarium. Yours is a blind rage ... a rage unequaled. It burns fierce, so fierce all your memory of what you do is obliterated. I watch you - I have watched you stirring those cold ashes, ever seeking to discover who you are, yet there I stand, at your side, bound by a vow to prevent you ever committing such an act again. You have destroyed cities, entire peoples. Once you begin killing, you cannot stop, until all before you is ... lifeless. — Steven Erikson

He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony.
Imagine a world without such souls.
Yes, it should have been harder to do. — Steven Erikson

What we desire in our hearts, Arathan, and what must be ... well, that is a rare embrace, so rare you're likely to never know it. You have lived that truth. I have no promises to make you. I cannot say what awaits you, but you are now in your year and the time has come for you to make your life. — Steven Erikson

She eyed him steadily, wondering at his sudden ... humanity. Maybe dying did away with the usual games, the pretenses of the living dance. — Steven Erikson

Love changes, aye, in the manner of growing to encompass as much of its subject as possible. Virtues, flaws, limitations, everything - love will fondle them all, with child-like fascination.' She — Steven Erikson

With ever greater frequency they annihilate themselves, for success breeds contempt for those very qualities that purchased it. — Steven Erikson

Twilight,' he said to Yan Tovis, 'that's a Letherii word you use. Would you be surprised if I told you the word for "twilight", in your original language, was "yenander"? And that "antovis" meant "night" or even "dark"? Your own name is your title, and I can see by your expression that you didn't even know it. Yedan Derryg? Not sure what "derryg" is -- we'll need to ask Sandalath -- but "yedanas" is "watch", both act and title. — Steven Erikson