Top 500 Steven Erikson Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “Reconciliation does not demand that one side surrender to the other. The simple, mutual recognition that mistakes were made is in itself a closing of the divide.”

— Steven Erikson

402. “How many of us bow before a god in the desperate hope that we can somehow shape our fate? Praying to that familiar face pushes away our terror of the unknown – the unknown being the future. Who knows, maybe these Tiste Andii are the only ones among us all who see the truth, the truth being oblivion.”

— Steven Erikson

403. “Bloodflies rode her drawn gasps into her mouth, biting as she gagged and spat.”

— Steven Erikson

404. “To draw a weapon is to announce an end to uncertainty.”

— Steven Erikson

405. “So you ain’t nearly as good as you think you are. What a shock. Look at your clothes and armour – you’re chopped to pieces, O mighty assassin.”

— Steven Erikson

406. “None to witness. Dust of dreams, dust of all that we never achieved. Dust of what we might have been and what we cannot help but be.”

— Steven Erikson

407. “Stop talking like a sailor, Adjutant Stormy,’ Nok said. A smile amidst the red, bristling beard. ‘Ain’t no Adjutant any more, Admiral.’ Thin brows rose, and Nok said, ‘Title alone gifts the bearer with intelligence?’ Stormy nodded. ‘That it does, sir. Which is why Gesler’s a sergeant and I’m a corporal. We get stupider every year that passes.’ ‘And.”

— Steven Erikson

408. “The air swirled into darkness around Paran. He blinked, saw the trees of the estate garden rising before him.”

— Steven Erikson

409. “Proof that the freedoms once accorded non-Letherii peoples were born of both paternalism and a self-serving posturing as a benign overseer. What is given is taken away, just like that.”

— Steven Erikson

410. “Soldiers have no imagination, meaning they’re capable of vast surprises.”

— Steven Erikson

411. “Hands were such extraordinary tools, she mused. Tools, weapons, clumsy and deft, numb and tactile. Among tribal hunters, they could speak, a flurry of gestures eloquent in silence. But they could not taste. Could not hear. Could not weep. For all that, they killed so easily.”

— Steven Erikson

412. “When those dreams in that unreachable future suddenly rise up around you, how can you not be blinded to their truths? All at once, it is here. All at once, you are living in its very midst. Why then must you seek to pull away? He.”

— Steven Erikson

413. “The creature spun, tumbling, then twisted round to face its attacker, rage blazing in its skull.”

— Steven Erikson

414. “The door flew open, carrying into the room a gust of steamy air and then Trotts.”

— Steven Erikson

415. “He rubbed at his face, as if seeking to awaken the right words from muscle, blood and bone.”

— Steven Erikson

416. “Autumn rains drumming overhead, they had squatted in a half-circle, facing north, and watched as seven robed and hooded figures approached.”

— Steven Erikson

417. “The drunk answers every assault with smirking equanimity,’ observed Haut, pouring his cup full again. ‘All reasoned words thud like pebbles in the sand. Made immune, I imbibe the nectar of the gods.”

— Steven Erikson

418. “But the value was an illusion. Hate was a lie that in feeding fills the hater with the feeling of satiation, even as his spirit starves.”

— Steven Erikson

419. “Hard lives begat hard laws, not just in the necessities of living, but also in those of believing.”

— Steven Erikson

420. “The power he commanded insisted upon subjects. Strength was ever relative, and he could not dominate without the company of the dominated.”

— Steven Erikson

421. “Age was a demon, a haunting that slipped into the bones whispering weakness and frailty. It stole his muscles, his agility, and the quickness of his wit. It seemed a miserable reward for surviving, all things told, which was proof enough that life was a fool’s bargain.”

— Steven Erikson

422. “He’d forgotten how irritating company could be. Uninvited, unwelcome, persistent reminder of his own weaknesses. And.”

— Steven Erikson

423. “The historian, now witness, stumbling in the illusion that he will survive. Long enough to set the details down on parchment in the frail belief that truth is a worthwhile cause. That the tale will become a lesson heeded. Frail belief? Outright lie, a delusion of the worst sort. The lesson of history is that no one learns.”

— Steven Erikson

424. “Opposite the Half-Axe was the narrow-fronted entrance to a shop devoted to short lengths of rope and wooden poles a man and a half high. Tehol had no idea how such a specialized enterprise could survive, especially in this unravelled, truncated market, yet its door had remained open for almost six centuries, locked up each night by a short length of rope and a wooden pole.”

— Steven Erikson

425. “Pogroms need no reason, sir, none that can weather challenge, in any case. Difference in kind is the first recognition, the only one needed, in fact. Land, domination, pre-emptive attacks – all just excuses, mundane justifications that do nothing but disguise the simple distinction. They are not us. We are not them.”

— Steven Erikson

426. “My inability to find peace, to trust it when I do find it, and to hold on to it.”

— Steven Erikson

427. “I would hold, my friend, that what you describe is but one side of the matter, and indeed one that looks only inward, as if the borders of your life enclose everything to be valued, while what lies beyond is of no worth whatsoever.”

— Steven Erikson

428. “The bully’s greatest terror,′ Bugg said, ‘comes when he meets someone bigger and meaner –.”

— Steven Erikson

429. “The blood in the fine, white sand was only a few hours old, still gummy to the touch. The stench of loosened bowels soured the hazy air.”

— Steven Erikson

430. “Memory did not let go; it remained the net dragged in one’s wake, with all sorts of strange things snarled in the knotted strands.”

— Steven Erikson

431. “Is possession a virtue? Is a lifetime of working for some rich toad a virtue? Is loyal employment in some merchant house a virtue? Loyal to what? To whom? Oh, have they paid for that loyalty with a hundred docks a week? Like any other commodity? But then, which version is truer – the virtue of self-serving acquisitiveness or the virtue of loyalty to one’s employer? Are.”

— Steven Erikson

432. “A chill crept over Duiker. Even wheeled hospitals carried with them that pervasive atmosphere of fear, the sounds of defiance and the silence of surrender. Mortality’s many comforting layers had been stripped away, revealing wracked bones, a sudden comprehension of death that throbbed like an exposed nerve.”

— Steven Erikson

433. “The girl stopped to regard him, her small round face slowly coming to mirror Paran’s own frown.”

— Steven Erikson

434. “Fiddler straightened, eyes on the stars glittering overhead. Desert stars, sharp diamonds that ever seemed eager to draw blood.”

— Steven Erikson

435. “Never bargain with a man who has nothing to lose.”

— Steven Erikson

436. “If there was neither a time before nor a time after, then was not the moment of creation eternal and yet for ever instantaneous?”

— Steven Erikson

437. “There is nothing wrong with where we are, how we are. You spit on satisfaction, leaving you always unsettled and miserable. I am a Teblor – we live simply enough, and we see the cruelty of your so-called progress. Slaves, children in chains, a thousand lies to make one person better than the next, a thousand lies telling you this is how things should be, and there’s no stopping it.”

— Steven Erikson

438. “While the innocent yearned to lose their innocence, those who had already done so in turn envied the innocent, and knew grief in what they had lost. Between the two, no exchange of truths was possible.”

— Steven Erikson

439. “In my village no one is a stranger – and this is what civilization has turned it’s back on. One day, Munug, I will make a world of villages, adn the age of cities will be over. And slavery will be dead, and there shall be no chains – tell your god. Tonight, I am his knight.′ – Karsa Orlong.”

— Steven Erikson

440. “Eddies of dry wind whipped tatters of cloth and reed paper about in dancing circles.”

— Steven Erikson

441. “We are nothing but our own needs. She but showed each of us the face we hide from ourselves and everyone else. She shamed us by exposing our truths.”

— Steven Erikson

442. “Every worthwhile plan is diabolical.”

— Steven Erikson

443. “That’s the thing with Just Wars – they never end and never will because Justice is a weak god with too many names.”

— Steven Erikson

444. “A small whimper escaped her throat, then she desperately pulled her eyes away.”

— Steven Erikson

445. “The three other rickety chairs had been pulled up around the lone table in the room’s centre. Above the table hung an oil lantern, which shone down on Fiddler, Hedge and Mallet as they sat playing cards.”

— Steven Erikson

446. “Failure wasn’t a pleasant notion. It stung. It burned like acid.”

— Steven Erikson

447. “Laughing, he’d flung dense clouds of earth and stone skyward to blind them.”

— Steven Erikson

448. “What is given away for free comes back wounded. Value is not always shared and some hands are rougher than others.”

— Steven Erikson

449. “And so, yet again, we crush the blossom in our hand, lift our gaze from the tumbling petals, and ask the world, ‘Where, then, is this beauty you promised?”

— Steven Erikson

450. “Kneels? Falters? Look to the night sky, foolish man, and gauge the victor in the contest between Dark and Light.”

— Steven Erikson