Top 500 Steven Erikson Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “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 weed, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself.’ ‘With words.’ ‘Indeed, with words. Form an opinion, say it often enough and pretty soon everyone’s saying it right back at you, and then it becomes a conviction, fed by unreasoning anger and defended with weapons of fear. At which point, words become useless and you’re left with a fight to the death.”

— Steven Erikson

252. “It is a fool’s curse, to measure oneself in endless dissatisfaction.”

— Steven Erikson

253. “For the wise, even joy was tinged with sorrow.”

— Steven Erikson

254. “Life was a war against a thousand enemies, from the sustenance carved from nature to the insanity of a people’s will to do wrong in the name of right.”

— Steven Erikson

255. “Some things went beyond a single man’s life, and maybe justice existed outside the minds of humanity, beyond even the hungry eyes of gods and goddesses, a thing shining and pure and final.”

— Steven Erikson

256. “Trull Sengar kills, and kills, and then, when it is done and he kneels in the blood of the kin he has slain, he weeps.”

— Steven Erikson

257. “Every body that darted within his reach he grasped, twisted, bent and broke.”

— Steven Erikson

258. “Never be too easy with the knowledge you possess. Words are like coin – it pays to hoard.” “Until you die on a bed of gold,” Paran said.”

— Steven Erikson

259. “Somewhere above this foul temple, crows danced with sparks above the mouth of a chimney, virtually unseen in the darkness. Each one carried a word, but the sparks were deaf. Too busy with the ecstasy of their own bright, blinding fire. At least, until they went out.”

— Steven Erikson

260. “When next you see Anomander, tell him this from me: he chose wisely. Each time, he chose wisely. Tell him, then, that of all whom I ever met, there is but one who has earned my respect, and he is that one.”

— Steven Erikson

261. “Why can’t I have normal friends?’ Stonny demanded. ‘Ones without tiger stripes and cat eyes? Ones without a hundred thousand souls riding their backs? Here comes a rider from that other lagging company – maybe he’s normal! Hood knows, he’s dressed like a farmer and looks inbred enough to manage only simple sentences. A perfect man! Hey! You! No, what are you hesitating for? Come to us, then! Please!”

— Steven Erikson

262. “Names are not for the asking, mortal. Names are earned.”

— Steven Erikson

263. “Histories, they’re just what’s survived. But they’re not the whole story, because the whole story can never be known. Think of all the histories we’ve gone and lost. Not just kingdoms and empires, but the histories inside every one of us, every person who ever lived.”

— Steven Erikson

264. “Whatever evil you let ride becomes commonplace, eventually. Problem is, it’s easier to get used to it than carve it out.”

— Steven Erikson

265. “Kill, thought Ditch, nodding, kill, yes, I understand. I do. Kill, for her. Kill. And he found that the word itself, yes, the word itself, knew how to smile.”

— Steven Erikson

266. “The Claw smiled. “You have begun to learn, Paran. Never be too easy with the knowledge you possess. Words are like coin – it pays to hoard.”

— Steven Erikson

267. “A man possessing power must act decisively, Ganoes Paran, else it would trickle away through his fingers.”

— Steven Erikson

268. “Duty and courage had been made animate, and this was all the T’lan Imass were, and had been for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet, without choice, such virtues as duty and courage were transformed into empty, worthless words. Without mortality, hovering like an unseen sword overhead, meaning was without relevance, no matter the nature – or even the motivation behind – an act. Any act.”

— Steven Erikson

269. “We faced a choice then,’ Haut went on. ‘To resume our onward journey, or to turn round, to discover the blessing that is walking back the way we came. In our standing in one place, we argued for centuries, until finally, in our mutual and well-deserved disgust, we each chose our own paths.’ ‘And so ended your civilization.’ ‘It was never much of one to begin with. But then, few are.”

— Steven Erikson

270. “He is strong enough to stand exposed, revealing all that is vulnerable within him. He is brave enough to invite you ever closer. If you hurt him, he will withdraw, as he must, and that path to him will be thereafter for ever sealed. But he begins with the gift of himself. What the other does with it defines the future of that particular relationship.”

— Steven Erikson

271. “The dull, hazy light played along the polished blade like water.”

— Steven Erikson

272. “Why do the survivors remain anonymous – as if cursed – while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold?”

— Steven Erikson

273. “What must be understood is this: attackers attack as a form of defence. It is their instinctive response to threat, real or perceived. It may be desperate or it may be habit, or both, when desperation becomes a way of life. Behind the assault hides a fragile person.”

— Steven Erikson

274. “The curse of the witless is to beat one’s head against the obstinate wall of how things really are, rather than what they insist upon their being.”

— Steven Erikson

275. “What frightened Paran most, these days, was that he had grown used to being used. He’d been someone else so many times that he saw a thousand faces, heard a thousand voices, all at war with his own.”

— Steven Erikson

276. “Whiskeyjack’s eyes widened as a crowd of excited guests poured out from the main chamber and gathered on the terrace.”

— Steven Erikson

277. “No one could claim that Preda Norlo Trumb was the most perceptive of individuals, and the half-dozen Letherii guards under his command, who stood in a twitching clump behind the Preda, were now faced with the very real possibility that Trumb’s stupidity was going to cost them their lives.”

— Steven Erikson

278. “Those whom the gods choose, ’tis said, they first separate from other mortals – by treachery, by stripping from you your spirit’s lifeblood. The gods will take all your loved ones, one by one, to their death. And, as you harden, as you become what they seek, the gods smile and nod. Each company you shun brings you closer to them. ‘Tis the shaping of a tool, son, the prod and pull, and the final succour they offer you is to end your loneliness – the very isolation they helped you create.”

— Steven Erikson

279. “The son, after all, is but an extension of the mother – at least so the mother believed, there in some inarticulate part of her soul, unseen yet solid as an iron chain. Assail the child and so too the mother is assailed, for what is challenged is her life as a mother, the lessons she taught or didn’t teach, the things she chose not to see, to explain away, to pretend were otherwise than what they were.”

— Steven Erikson

280. “We have witnessed life’s myriad struggles. From the lone creature suffering its last moments to thousands dying in a bleak season. And what have we learned? Only that life is its own purpose. And that, where there is life, there shall be suffering. Has it any meaning? Is existence reason enough?”

— Steven Erikson

281. “The tunnels shrieked with the wind, each one with its own febrile pitch, creating a fierce chorus.”

— Steven Erikson

282. “Peace did not serve order; order served peace, and when order became godlike, sacrosanct and inviolate, then the peace thus won became a prison, and those who sought their freedom became enemies to order, and in the elimination of such enemies, peace was lost.”

— Steven Erikson

283. “He was asked, then, who was this Winged Grief? And Gallan said, ‘There is but one left who would dare command me. One who would not weep and yet had taken into his soul a people’s sorrow, a realm’s sorrow. His name was Silchas Ruin.”

— Steven Erikson

284. “Take a thousand soldiers. Four hundred will stand in a fight but do nothing. Two hundred will run given the chance. Another hundred will get confused. That leaves three hundred you can count on. Your task in commanding that thousand is all down to knowing where to put that three hundred.”

— Steven Erikson

285. “Then darkness swept in around him and he knew no more.”

— Steven Erikson

286. “And then he saw the chains, snapping down through the clouds to crack thunderously on the horizon. Hundreds of chains, impossibly huge, black, whipping in the air with explosions of red dust, crisscrossing the sky. Horror filled his soul.”

— Steven Erikson

287. “Tool interrupted, ’do you mock me, or your own ignorance? Not even the lichen of the tundra is at peace. All is struggle, all is war for dominance. Those who lose, vanish.”

— Steven Erikson

288. “Fighting is for people who fail at everything else.”

— Steven Erikson

289. “Rely not upon conscience,’ Feren said, hearing the bitterness in her own voice and not caring. ‘It ever kneels to necessity.”

— Steven Erikson

290. “A true believer, indeed, need never draw a weapon, need never rise in argument, or howl in fury, or make fists, or roll in a mob to crush some helpless, innocent enemy. A true believer needs none of those things. How much of the world insists on living this lie?”

— Steven Erikson

291. “In natural justice, Arathan, the weak cannot hide, unless we grant them the privilege. And understand, it is ever a privilege, for wich the weak should be eternally grateful. At any given moment, should the strong will it, they can swing a sword and end the life of the weak. And that will be today’s lesson. Forbearance.”

— Steven Erikson

292. “Bah! You’re not worth the effort anyway!’ And all at once she collapsed into a heap of spiders that scurried in all directions.”

— Steven Erikson

293. “The Warrens of Magic dwelt in the beyond. Find the gate and nudge it open a crack. What leaks out is yours to shape. With these words a young woman set out on the path to sorcery. Open yourself to the Warren that comes to you – that finds you. Draw forth its power – as much as your body and soul are capable of containing – but remember, when the body fails, the gate closes.”

— Steven Erikson

294. “The past is a demon that not even death can shake.”

— Steven Erikson

295. “Kadaspala worshipped colour. It was the gift of light; and in its tones, heavy and light, faint and rich, was painted all of life.”

— Steven Erikson

296. “The world is inherited by the obnoxious, not the righteous.”

— Steven Erikson

297. “When wealth ascends to a point where the majority of the poor finally comprehend that it is, for each of them, unattainable, then all civility collapses, and anarchy prevails.”

— Steven Erikson

298. “Fallen. Who tracks our footsteps, I wonder? We who are the forgotten, the discounted and the ignored. When the path is failure, it is never willingly taken. The fallen. Why does my heart weep for them? Not them but us, for most assuredly I am counted among them. Slaves, serfs, nameless peasants and labourers, the blurred faces in the crowd – just a smear on memory, a scuffing of feet down the side passages of history.”

— Steven Erikson

299. “The sky cares nothing for you, dear one. The stars don’t even see you.”

— Steven Erikson

300. “A man pushed from behind by many hands will go in but one direction, no matter what he wills.”

— Steven Erikson