Steven Erikson

"If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in. We are desperate with our dreams. What - oh, what - does that say?"

"The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises."

"Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!' The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. 'Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that'Karsa grinned, 'Why, a civilized one.''Indeed!' Shadowthrone turned to Cotillion. 'And you doubted this one!"

"“Save your explanations, I got some questions for you first and you'd better answer them!' [slurred Hellian.] 'With what' [Banaschar] sneered. 'Explanations' 'No. Answers. There's a difference-' 'Really? How? What difference' 'Explanations are what people use when they need to lie. Y'can always tell those,'cause those don't explain nothing and then they look at you like they just cleared things up when really they did the opposite and they know it and you know it and they know you know and you know they know that you know and they know you and you know them and maybe you go out for a pitcher later but who picks up the tab? That's what I want to know.' 'Right, and answers' 'Answers is what I get when I ask questions. Answers is when you got no choice. I ask, you tell. I ask again, you tell some more. Then I break your fingers, 'cause I don't like what you're telling me, because those answers don't explain nothing!”"

"All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture, and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear. So, I have plenty of sympathy for self-defense mechanisms, especially among artists."

"The prince is blind to subtlety. He knows his own ignorance and stupidity so is ever suspicious of others, especially when they say things he does not understand. One cannot negotiate when dragged in the wake of emotions."

"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."

"It's our nature, isn't it? Again and again, we cling to the foolish belief taht simple solutions exist"

"I have seen the face of sorrow She looks away in the distance Across all these bridges From whence I came And those spans, trussed and arched Hold up our lives as we go back again To how we thought then To how we thought we thought then I have seen sorrow's face,But she is ever turned away And her words leave me blind Her eyes make me mute I do not understand what she says to me I do not know if to obey Or attempt a flood of tears I have seen her face She does not speak She does not weep She does not know me For I am but a stone fitted in place On the bridge where she walks Lay of the Bridgeburners Toc the Younger"

"Captain! You can't hold them off! I tried! I swear! They've been artificially enhanced, sir! But all the humans died out - there's bones out there by the millions! They were all suffocated by cuteness! The World is full of kiitens, oh the horror!'My God,' Hadrian said. "They've finally did it! All those oh-so-cute-my-cuddy-kittens-here's-a-pic bastards! They finally went and did it!"

"...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."

"Now get going. You'll find a way of calm through."And you, Mael"I'll drop in later. I've things for you to do, Withal. But for now," he faced inland, "I'm going to beat a god senseless."

"For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words' 'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.' 'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp,.. 'that is precisely the point. That's their value - their ability to adapt -' 'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse."

"The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises."

"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"

"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."

"Laws decide wich forms of oppression are allowed, Lord. And because of that, those laws are servants to those in power, for whom oppression is given as a right over those who have little or no power."

"The closest I ever got to Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms was when I bought the box game set for the latter (I think this was before the novels came out). I well recall this—we were living in James Bay, in Victoria. We opened the box up and took out the maps while sitting in a Mexican restaurant. Ten minutes later I was as close as I have ever been to publicly burning someone else’s creation…What bothered us was the reworking of every fantasy cliché imaginable, all in one package now, and none of it made sense."

"None could guess my confusion, my host of deluded illusions and elusive delusions! A mantle of marble hiding a crumbling core of sandstone. See how they stare at me, wondering, all wondering, at my secret wellspring of wisdom...' Let's kill him,' Crokus muttered, 'if only to put him out of our misery."

"Dour music has its own beauty, for the song of ruin is most fertile."