Steven Erikson quotes - page 3

It is one thing to lead by example with half a dozen soldiers at your back. It is wholly another with ten thousand. (Steven Erikson)
No-one chooses me. I do not give anyone that right. I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. All choices belong to me. View quote
Steven Erikson
But now Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart. View quote
Steven Erikson
An army that waits is soon an army at war with itself. View quote
Steven Erikson
He had nowhere to look for answers, and he was tired of asking questions. View quote
Steven Erikson
No, do not look at me that way, you of smooth and subtle thought, you give your sympathy too quickly and therein hide your belief in your own superiority. I do not deny your cleverness, but I question your compassion. View quote
Steven Erikson
Your guest is mundane, a restless personage whose thoughts are thick with greed and treachery. A demon crouches on his shoulder, named Ambition. View quote
Steven Erikson
Through the gamut of life we struggled for control, for a means to fashion the world around us, an eternal, hopeless hunt for the privilege of being able to predict the shape of our lives. View quote
Steven Erikson
Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops whither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing. View quote
Steven Erikson
I look at you and I see a man because that's what men are capable of-I don't hunt for excuses because I don't like to think that that's how nasty we can get. We look at Sorry and we see reflections of ourselves. Hood take it, if we don't like what we see. View quote
Steven Erikson
Nor would he recognize hope if it came to him. Too much a stranger, too long a ghost. (Steven Erikson)
Keep a watch out, fools! There are things out there and you know what happens when things arrive! View quote
Steven Erikson
Wisdom did not belong to mortals, and those whom others called wise were only those who, through grim experience, had touched the very edges of unwelcome truths. For the wise, even joy was tinged with sorrow. No, the world made its demands upon mortals and they were immediate ones, pressingly, ferociously so, and even knowing a reasonable course was not enough to alter a mad plunge into disaster. View quote
Steven Erikson
Reconciliation does not demand that one side surrender to the other. The simple, mutual recognition that mistakes were made is in itself a closing of the divide. View quote
Steven Erikson
Oh," the figure settled back down, "those reasons. Well, yes. Clever, even. But still profoundly stupid. View quote
Steven Erikson
The world, Ahlrada Ahn knew, was indifferent to the necessity of preservation. Of histories, of stories layered with meaning and import. It cared nothing for what was forgotten, for memory and knowledge had never been able to halt the endless repetition of wilful stupidity that so bound peoples and civilizations. View quote
Steven Erikson
Just so,' agreed the King. 'So accept the escort, Adjunct, or I shall hold my breath until I achieve a most royal shade of purple. View quote
Steven Erikson
Necessity, now there's a word to feed every outrage on decency. View quote
Steven Erikson
Do I want you to talk to me, old friend? Do I need your reminders, your wry confirmation that faith is for fools? View quote
Steven Erikson
As with most unwitting servants of the gods, once the game was done so was the servant's life. View quote
Steven Erikson
Lorn stared at Tool. "Was that an attempt at humor?” she asked. The T'lan Imass adjusted his helmet. "That depends on your mood, Adjunct.”. (Steven Erikson)
He who would dominate must learn early that those resisting his command should be destroyed. View quote
Steven Erikson
An item,” he said softly, his eyes on the disc, "that passes without provenance, pursued by many who thirst for its cold kiss, on which life and all that lay within life is often gambled. Alone, a beggar's crown. In great numbers, a king's folly. Weighted with ruin, yet blood washes from it beneath the lightest rain, and to the next no hint of its cost. It is as it is, says Kruppe, worthless but for those who insist otherwise. View quote
Steven Erikson
Compassion existed when and only when one could step outside oneself, to suddenly see the bars from inside the cage. View quote
Steven Erikson
The righteous will claim sole domain on judgment. The righteous are the first to make hands into fists, the first to shout down dissenters, the first to bully others into compliance. View quote
Steven Erikson