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. Steven Erikson More Quotes by Steven Erikson More Quotes From Steven Erikson You always fashioned yourself as the Empire's harshest Fist, didn't you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty's a virtue. Steven Erikson empires virtue fists 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. Steven Erikson poison civilization world Name none of the fallen, for they stand 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 moments names forgotten 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 blessed song men What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think. Steven Erikson dangerous soldier thinking He was not a modest man. Contemplating suicide, he summoned a dragon.' Gothos' Folly Steven Erikson dragons suicide men Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us. Steven Erikson allies poison needs Never, dear gods. Never mess with mortals. Steven Erikson dear-god dear mess "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." Steven Erikson hatred roots people 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! Steven Erikson confusion silence air We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And, indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again." ~Fiddler, pg. 558 Steven Erikson mastery humility soul 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. Steven Erikson crumbling confusion secret When two people are paying close attention to each other, check out the others in the group and see who's observing. Human dynamics are amazing, but so much that you might learn is subconscious interplay. Steven Erikson amazing you attention people I've spoken often of how the fantasy genre is able to, with the greatest freedom among all the genres, take a metaphor and make it real. But of course that's only the starting point. Steven Erikson how fantasy freedom real