Quotes by Steven Erikson

Eventually every man reaches a point where every memory is unwelcome

the siren song/called silence

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.

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.

Awful things, children. Needy, self-centered tyrants, the boys all teeth and firsts, the girls all claws and spit. Gathering into sniveling packs and sniffing out vulnerabilities — and woe to the child not cunning enough to hide their own — the others would close in like the grubby shark they were. Great pastime, savaging someone.

Gather close, and let us speak of nasty little shits. Oh, come now, we are no strangers to the vicious demons in placid disguises, innocent eyes so wide, hidden minds so dark. Does evil exist? Is it a force, some deadly possession that slips into the unwary? Is it a thing separate and thus subject to accusation and blame, distinct from the one it has used? Does it flit from soul to soul, weaving its diabolical scheme in all the unseen places, snarling into knots tremulous fears and appalling opportunity, stark terrors and brutal self-interest? Or is the dread word nothing more than a quaint and oh so convenient encapsulation of all those traits distinctly lacking moral context, a sweeping generalization embracing all things depraved and breath takingly cruel, a word to define that peculiar glint in the eye—the voyeur to one’s own delivery of horror, of pain and anguish and impossible grief?Give the demon crimson scales, slashing talons. Tentacles and dripping poison. Three eyes and six slithering tongues. As it crouches there in the soul, its latest abode in an eternal succession of abodes, may every god kneel in prayer.But really. Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity—the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us.But if that is too dire, let’s call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.There are extremities of behaviour that seem, at the time, perfectly natural, indeed reasonable. They are arrived at suddenly, or so it might seem, but if one looks the progression reveals itself, step by step, and that is a most sad truth.

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.

The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilizations 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

A civilization can easily drown in what it knows as in what doesnt know. Consider, he continued, Gothos Folly. Gothos 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.

You had the physical bullies and the emotional bullies and they both revelled in destroying lives.No, she had no time for them. But there were others whose strength was of a much rarer kind. Not easy to find, because they revealed nothing. They were quiet. They often believed themselves to be much weaker than they were. But when pushed too hard, they surprised themselves, finding they would not back away another step, that a wall had risen in their souls, unyielding, a barrier that could not be passed. To find one such as this was the most precious of discoveries.

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

For Hoods sake, the foreigner muttered. Whats wrong with words? With words, said Redmask, turning away, meanings change. Well, Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his armys camp,.. that is precisely the point. Thats 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 words 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.

Words were numbers were codes were formulae. Words held secret maps, the measuring of paces, the patterns of mortal minds, of histories, of cities, of continents and warrens.

Now get going. Youll find a way of calm through.And you, Mael?Ill drop in later. Ive things for you to do, Withal. But for now, he faced inland, Im going to beat a god senseless.

Purest light will blind as surely as absolute darkness.

The trust I have...for some people...comes down to how well I know them, and then its a matter of my trusting them to do what I think theyre going to do.

The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.

He waited a moment, as they walked side by side through the camp, and then asked, Sir, if theres something we cant handle how do we handle it anyway? She either grunted or laughed from the same place that grunts came from. Sawtooth wedges and keep going, Beak. Throw back whatever is thrown at us. Keep going, until. . . Until what? Its all right, Beak, to die alongside your comrades. Its all right. Do you understand me? Yes sir, I do. It is all right, because theyre my friends. Thats right, Beak.

...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.

Memory did not let go; it remained the net dragged in ones wake, with all sorts of strange things snarled in the knotted strands.