Dust of Dreams (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #9)

by Steven Erikson

In arrogance we orphan ourselves, and then rail at the awful solitude we find on the road to death.

Humans insisted on others behaving properly, but rarely forced the same standards upon themselves. Justifications dispensed with logic, thriving on opportunism and delusions of pious propriety.

Discipline among a few could defeat a multitude—

Is there anything more worthless than excuses?

‘Falsehoods cease being false when enough people believe them, Bakal. Instead, they blaze like eternal truths, and woe to the fool who tries pissing a stream on that. They’ll tear you to pieces.’

as if desire alone was a virtue, a thing so pure and so righteous it could not be questioned, could not be challenged.

‘tradition’ was . . . what had he called it? ‘Stupidity on purpose’,

Truth was such a rare weapon, and all the more deadly for it.

We shall rest in emptiness, not forgotten—for forgetting follows remembrance, and there shall be no remembrance.

When does it happen? All those wounds that ended up making us the adults we are? A child starved never grows tall or strong. A child unloved can never find love or give it when grown. A child that does not laugh will become someone who can find nothing in the world to laugh at. And a child hurt deeply enough will spend a lifetime trying to scab that wound—even as they ceaselessly pick at it. She thought of all the careless acts and indifferent, impatient gestures she’d seen among parents in civilized places, as if they had no time for their own children. Too busy, too full of themselves, and all of that was simply passed on to the next generation, over and over again.