Malazan Book Of The Fallen Quotes

“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!”
― Steven Erikson, The Bonehunters

“When you've burned the bridges behind you, don't go starting a fire on the one in front of you.”
― Steven Erikson, The Bonehunters

“You have learned much, Karsa Orlong."
"I have, T'lan Imass. As you shall witness.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains

“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, Deadhouse Gates

“Retribution seen in natural catastrophes is manufactured by all too eager
and all too pious people, each one convinced the world will end but spare them and them
alone. But we all know, the world is inherited by the obnoxious, not the righteous”
― Steven Erikson, Reaper's Gale

“People of civilized countenance made much of exposing the soft underbellies of their psyche - effete and sensitive were the brands of finer breeding. It was easy for them, safe, and that was the whole point, after all: a statement of coddled opulence that burned the throats of the poor more than any ostentatious show of wealth.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“A book of prophesy opens the doors.
You need a second book to close it.

Tanno Spiritwalker Kimloc”
― Steven Erikson

“Some roads were easier to leave than others. Many walked to seek the future, but found only the past. Others sought the past, to make it new once more, and discovered that the past was nothing like the one they'd imagined.”
― Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams

“A rough, broken voice replied. 'There is value.'
Everyone fell silent, turned to Duiker.
The old man looked down once more at the cloth in his hands.
The silence stretched.
Duiker made no move.
Picker began to turn back to her companions — when the man began speaking. 'Very well, permit me, if you will, on this night. To break your hearts once more. This is the story of the Chain of Dogs. Of Coltaine of the Crow Clan, newly come Fist to the 7th Army...”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“She watched with morbid fascination as they gathered at the stumps at the ends of the man's wrists, the old scar tissue the only place on him unclaimed by Fener, but the paths the sprites took to those stumps touched not a single tattooed line. The flies dance a dance of avoidance - but for all that, they were eager to dance.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“Compassion. Love. It was not civilization that birthed these gentle gifts.... A civilization was the means by which too many people could live together despite their mutual hatred. And those moments where love and community burgeoned forth, the cynics descended like vultures eager to feed, and the skies soured, and the moment died away.”
― Steven Erikson

“the siren song/called silence”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“Shurq Elalle's fate had taken a turn for the worse. Nothing to do with her profession, for her skills in the art of thievery were legendary among the lawless class. An argument with her landlord, sadly escalating to attempted murder on his part, to which she of course - in all legality - responded by flinging him out the window. The hopeless man's fall had, unfortunately, been broken by a waddling merchant on the street below. The landlord's neck broke. So did the merchant's.”
― Steven Erikson, Midnight Tides

“Many adults, in the indurated immobility of years, acquire a fear of places they have never been, even as they long for something different in their lives, something new. But this new thing is a world of the fantastical, formless in answer to vague longings, and is as much defined by absence as presence. It is a conjuration of emotions and wishful imaginings, which may or may not possess a specific geography. Achieving such a place demands a succession of breaks with one's present situation, always a traumatic endeavour, and upon completion, why, sudden comes the fear.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“The more you dream of one particular and pleasing thing, Ralata, the quicker it palls. The edges get worn down, the lustre fades. To leave such obsessions behind, dream of them often.”
― Steven Erikson

“His gaze worked its way down the squalid street, building to building, the decrepit remnants of what had once been a thriving community. Intent on its own destruction, even then, though no doubt few thought that way at the time. The forest must have seemed endless, or at least immortal, and so they had harvested with frenzied abandon. But now the trees were gone, and all those hoarded coins of profit had slipped away, leaving hands filled with nothing but sand. Most of the looters would have moved on, sought out some other stand of ancient trees, to persist in the addiction of momentary gain. Making one desert after another … until the deserts meet.”
― Steven Erikson

“Karsa spoke in a low voice, 'Tovald Nom, listen well. A warrior who followed me, Delum Thord, was struck on the head. His skull cracked and leaked thought-blood. His mind could not walk back up the path. He was left helpless, harmless. I, too, have been struck on the head. My skull is cracked and I have leaked thought-blood ـــــــــــ'

Actually it was drool.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains