Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #3)

by Steven Erikson

The hidden is slowly revealed. Look on these once-enemies. You fight in your mind, raising up all the differences between us, you struggle to hold on to your dislike, your hatred of them, for that is what is familiar. Memories are the foundations of such hatred. But, Mother, memories hold another truth, a secret one, and that is all that we have experienced, yes?’

Even suffering, the Rhivi had come to realize, was capable of becoming a way of life.

Self-pity could easily become a well-worn path in his thoughts, unless he remained mindful of its insipid allure.

we ever remain children, far beneath the indurated layers that make up the armour of adulthood.

You must dismantle your sources, Toc the Younger, lest you do nothing but ape the prejudices of others.’

War is not a natural state. It is an imposition, and a damned unhealthy one. With its rules, we willingly yield our humanity. Speak not of just causes, worthy goals. We are takers of life.

Of all the weapons we turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one’s own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions.’

We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned. T’lan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be given freely. In abundance.