Malazan Quotes

“Kallor shrugged. '[...] I have walked this land when the T'lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?'

'Yes,' [said Caladan Brood.] 'You never learn.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?'
The Imass shrugged before replying.
'I think of futility, Adjunct.'
'Do all Imass think about futility?'
'No. Few think at all.'
'Why is that?'
The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her.
'Because Adjunct, it is futile.”
― Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon

“The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“Ben Adaephon Delat," Pearl said plaintively, "see the last who comes. You send me to my death."
"I know," Quick Ben whispered.
"Flee, then. I will hold them enough to ensure your escape no more."
Quick Ben sank down past the roof.
Before he passed from sight Pearl spoke again. "Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?"
"Yes" he replied softly, then pivoted and dropped down into darkness.”
― Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon

“Soldiers are issued armour for their flesh and bones, but they must fashion their own for their souls. Piece by piece. (Itkovian)”
― Steven Erikson

“Brys, how big do you want to make your escort?"

"Two brigades and two battalions, sire."

"Is that reasonable?" Tehol asked, looking around.

"I have no idea," Janath replied. "Bugg?"

"I'm no general, my Queen."

"We need an expert opinion, then," said Tehol. "Brys?”
― Steven Erikson, Dust of Dreams

“When you do not recognize the wrongs of the past, the future takes its revenge. -Author forgotten”
― Ian C. Esslemont, Stonewielder

“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”
― Steven Erikson

“Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.”
― Steven Erikson, Midnight Tides

“I've come to understand that the truth isn't really what's important...what really matters is what people agree is the truth. -Greymane”
― Ian C. Esslemont, Stonewielder

“We are not simple creatures. You dream that with memories will come knowledge, and from knowledge, understanding. But for every answer you find, a thousand new questions arise. All that we are has lead us to where we are, but tells us little of where we're going. Memories are a weight you can never shrug off.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“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

“High house shadow, and a knife in the dark. A new game's begun, or the old one's just turned.”
― Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon

“Dour music has its own beauty, for the song of ruin is most fertile.”
― Steven Erikson

“It may be that in the belief of the possibility of redemption, people willingly do wrong. Redemption waits, like a side door, there in whatever court of judgement we eventually find ourselves. Not even the payment of a fine is demanded, simply the empty negotiation that absolves responsibility. A shaking of hands and off one goes, through that side door, with the judge benignly watching on. Culpability and consequences neatly evaded.

There is, in this, no moral compass. No need for one, for every path leads to the same place, where blessing is passed out, no questions asked.

The cult of the Redeemer... it is an abomination.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Anomander Rake walked into Darujhistan.

Howls rose like madness unleashed.

The Son of Darkness reached up and unsheathed Dragnipur.

Steam curled from the black blade, twisting into ephemeral chains that stretched out as he walked up the wide, empty street. Stretched out to drag behind him, and from each length others emerged and from those still more, a forest's worth of iron roots, snaking out, whispering over the cobbles.

He had never invited such a manifestation before. Reigning in that bleed of power had been an act of mercy, to all those who might witness it, who might comprehend its significance.

But on this night, Anomander Rake had other things on his mind.

Chains of smoke, chains and chains and chains, so many writhing in his wake that they filled the breadth of the street, that they snaked over and under and spilled out into side streets, alleys, beneath estate gates, beneath doors and through windows.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“To see a dead body was to recoil, mind spinning a dust-devil of thoughts - that is not me - see the difference between us? That is not me, that is not me. No one I know, no one I have ever known. That is not me . . . but . . . it could be.

So easily it could be.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“To stand in the heart of Dragnipur, to stand above the very Gate of Darkness, this was, for Anomander Rake, a most final act. Perhaps it was desperation. Or a sacrifice beyond all mortal measure.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“She saw the birth unfolding, saw the small creature with those strangely wise eyes that seemed to belong to every newborn. And then the years rushing on, the child growing, faces taking the shape they would carry into old age.

But not all. As mother after mother stepped through her, futures flashed bright, and some died quickly indeed. Fraught, flickering sparks, ebbing, winking out, darkness rushing in. And at these she cried out, filled with anguish even as she understood that souls travelled countless journeys, of which only one could be known by a mortal, so many, in countless perturbations, and that the loss belonged only to others, never to the child itself, for in its inarticulate, ineffable wisdom, understanding was absolute; the passage of life that seemed tragically short could well be the perfect duration, the experience complete.

Others, however, died in violence, and this was a crime, an outrage against life itself. Here, among these souls, there was fury, shock, denial. There was railing, struggling, bitter defiance.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Traveller said, 'I expect the Tiste Edur discovered rather quickly the curse of occupation. It acts like a newly opened wound, infecting and poisoning both the oppressors and the oppressed. Both cultures become malformed, bitter with extremes. Hatred, fear, greed, betrayal, paranoia , and appalling indifference to suffering.'

'Yet the Malazans occupied Seven Cities'

'No, Samar Dev. The Malazans conquered Seven Cities. That is different. Kellanved understood that much. If one must grip hard in enemy territory, then that grip must be hidden, at the very cusp of local power. And so no more than a handful is being strictly controlled, everyone else, merchants and herders and farmers and tradefolk, everyone, is to be shown better circumstances, as quickly as possible. "Conquer as a rogue wave, rule in quiet ripples." The Emperor's own words.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Leave him there, now, and ride one last ripple, out beyond the city, west along the lakeshore, out to a dusty, smoky pit where the less privileged labored through their shortened lives to keep such creatures as Gorlas Vidikas and Humble Measure at the level of comfort and entitlement they held to be righteous. And, to be fair, they labored as well to contribute to the general feeling of civilization, which is normally measured by technical wherewithal, a sense of progression, and the the notion of structural stability, little of which said laborers could themselves experience, save vicariously.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“And these things were never so precious
Listen to the bird in its cage as it speaks
In a dying man's voice; when he is gone
The voice lives to greet and give empty
Assurances with random poignancy

I do not know if I could live with that
If I could armor myself as the unhuman beak
Opens to a dead man's reminder, head cocked
As if channeling the ghost of the one
Who imagines an absence of sense, a vacuum awaiting

The cage is barred and nightly falls the shroud
To silene the commentary of impossible apostles
Spirit godlings and spanning abyss, impenetrable cloud
Between the living and the dead, the here and the gone
Where no bridge can smooth the passage of pain

And these things were never so precious
Listening to the bird as it speaks and it speaks
And it speaks, the one who has faded away
The father departed knowing the unknown
And it speaks and it speaks and it speaks
In my father's voice

Caged Bird
Fisher kel Tath”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Shan slid up beside Cotillion, eyes fixed on Tulas Shorn. A moment later Baran, Rood, Blind, and Gear arrived, padding round the rulers of the Realm of Shadow, and onward to encircle the Tiste Edur.
Who held out his hands, as if inviting the beast to draw close.
None did.
'They preferred you living, I think', Cotillion observed. 'The dead surrender so much.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“There is nothing just in death. When the moment arrives, it is always too soon. The curse of incompletion, the loss that can never be filled. Before too long, rising like jagged rocks from the flood, there was anger.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“The cascade of sudden deaths, inexplicable and outrageous accidents, miserable ends and terrible murders filled every abode, every corner and every hovel in a spreading tide, a most fatal flood creeping out through the hapless city on all sides. No age was spared, no weight of injustice tipped these scales. Death took them all: well born and destitute, the ill and the healthy, criminal and victim, the unloved and the cherished.

So many last breaths: coughed out, sighed, whimpered, bellowed in defiance, in disbelief, in numbed wonder. And if such breaths could coalesce, could form a think, dry, pungent, fugue of dismay, in the city on this night not a single globe of blue fire could be seen.

There were survivors. Many, many survivors - indeed, more survived than died - but alas, it was a close run thing, this measure, this fell harvest.

The god walked eastward, out from Gadrobi District and into Lakefront, and, from there, up into the Estates.

This night was not done. My, not done at all.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“We're all born to die, you idiot. Let the span last a single heartbeat, let it last a thousand years. Stretch the heartbeat out, crush down the centuries, it's no different. They feel the same, when the end arrives.
Gods, they feel the same!”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Draconus staggered up. 'Pearl, my friend, I have come to say goodbye. And to tell you I am sorry.'
'What saddens you?' the demon asked.
'I am sorry, Pearl, for all of this. For Dragnipur. For the horror forged by my own hands. It was fitting, was it not, that the weapon claimed its maker? I think, yes, it was. It was.' He paused, and then brought both hands up to his face. For a moment it seemed he would begin clawing his beard from the skin beneath it. Instead, the shackled hands fell away, down, dragged by the weight of the chains.
'I too am sorry,' said Pearl. 'To see the end of this.'
'What?'
'So many enemies, all here and not one by choice. Enemies, and yet working together for so long. It was a wonderous thing, was it not, Draconus? When necessity forced each hand to clasp, to work as one. A wonderous thing.'
The warrior stared at the demon. He seemed unable to speak.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“(Heboric & Felisin)
She wept for a long, long time, and he held her tight, unmoving, as solid as he could manage. And each time the vision of his fallen god rose before his mind's eye, he ruthlessly drove it back down. The child in his arms -- for child she was, once more -- cried in nothing other than the throes of salvation. She was no longer alone, no longer alone with only her hated sister to taint the family's blood.

For that -- for the need his presence answered -- his own grief would wait.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains