Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2)

by Steven Erikson

‘The sheer … frivolity, Mappo. The materials alone for this tome are a craftsman’s annual wage. No scholar in their right mind would waste such resources – never mind their time – on such a pointless, trite subject.

Freedom had been won, at the cost of everything.

Every ritual of resurrection I have ever heard attempted inevitably resulted in a price beyond reckoning.

Words can so easily glide over mayhem and terror and horror, it’s a wonder trust exists at all.

Save the piety for the latrines.’