The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Quotes

“It’s the ignorant who find a cause and cling to it, for within that is the illusion of significance.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“The slave’s grin was hard with malice. ‘Damn you, Fear Sengar.’ ‘How did that offend you?’ ‘You just stated the central argument – both for and against the institution of slavery. I was wasted, was I? Or of necessity kept under firm heel. Too many people like me on the loose and no ruler, tyrant or otherwise, could sit assured on a throne. We would stir things up, again and again. We would challenge, we would protest, we would defy. By being enlightened, we would cause utter mayhem. So, Fear, kick another basket of fish over here, it’s better for everyone.’ ‘Except you.’ ‘No, even me. This way, all my brilliance remains ineffectual, harmless to anyone and therefore especially to myself, lest my lofty ideas loose a torrent of blood.’ Seren Pedac grunted, ‘You are frightened by your own ideas, Udinaas?’ ‘All the time, Acquitor. Aren’t you?”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

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― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation. None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve. To face death is to stand alone.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Denigration afflicted our vaunted ideals long ago, but such inflictions are difficult to measure, to rise up and point a finger to this place, this moment, and say: here, my friends, this was where our honour, our integrity died. The affliction was too insipid, too much a product of our surrendering mindful regard and diligence. The meanings of words lost their precision – and no-one bothered taking to task those who cynically abused those words to serve their own ambitions, their own evasion of personal responsibility. Lies went unchallenged, lawful pursuit became a sham, vulnerable to graft, and justice itself became a commodity, mutable in imbalance. Truth was lost, a chimera reshaped to match agenda, prejudices, thus consigning the entire political process to a mummer’s charade of false indignation, hypocritical posturing and a pervasive contempt for the commonry. Once subsumed, ideals and the honour created by their avowal can never be regained, except, alas, by outright, unconstrained rejection, invariably instigated by the commonry, at the juncture of one particular moment, one single event, of such brazen injustice that revolution becomes the only reasonable response. Consider this then a warning. Liars will lie, and continue to do so, even beyond being caught out. They will lie, and in time, such liars will convince themselves, will in all self-righteousness divest the liars of culpability. Until comes a time when one final lie is voiced, the one that can only be answered by rage, by cold murder, and on that day, blood shall rain down every wall of this vaunted, weaning society. Impeached Guild Master’s Speech Semel Fural of the Guild of Sandal-Clasp Makers”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“When memories have returned, Trull Sengar, solitude is an illusion, for every silence is filled by a clamorous search for meaning.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“My faith in the gods is this: they are indifferent to my suffering.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Mother Dark had turned away. She had left them to fates of their own devising, and in so doing, she had taken away their privilege of blaming someone else.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“It’s all right, Beak, to die alongside your comrades. It’s all right. Do you understand me?’ ‘Yes sir, I do. It is all right, because they’re my friends.’ ‘That’s right, Beak.’ And that’s why no-one needs to worry, Captain.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Sometimes a mage would just up and hug him, then walk away. Once, a wizard he was talking to just started crying. That had frightened Beak.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“So talk. You can think while you’re doing that, since with you the two activities are clearly distinct and mostly unrelated.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Pure genius. Why didn’t I think of that?’ The tone began rising once more. ‘Why? Because I’m not an idiot!!”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Kneel to one or many, but never—never, Kalyth—hold to a belief that but one god exists, that all that is resides within that god. Should you hold such a belief, then by every path of reasoning that follows, you cannot but conclude that your one god is cursed, a thing of impossible aspirations and deafening injustice, whimsical in its cruelty, blind to mercy and devoid of pity.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Then Hedge asked, ‘Can you do it, Quick? Some place with…with eternal torment. Can you do that, wizard? I asked if you can do that!’ Quick Ben faced Fiddler, a question in his eyes. Oh no, Quick, this one isn’t for me to say— ‘Fiddler, help me decide. Please.’ Gods, even Quick Ben’s grieving. Who was this warrior? ‘You’re High Mage, Quick Ben. Do what needs doing.’ The wizard turned back to Hedge. ‘Hood owes me, Hedge.’ ‘What kind of answer is that?’ But Quick Ben turned, gestured, and a dark blur rose round the Letherii, closed entirely about the man’s body, then shrank, as if down into the sand, until nothing remained. There was a faint scream as whatever awaited the Letherii had reached out to take hold of him. Then the wizard snapped out a hand and pulled Fiddler close, and his face was pale with rage. ‘Don’t you pity him, Fid. You understand me?”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“All it needs,’ she said, memories clouding her mind, ‘is the breaking of one rule, one law. A breaking that no one then calls to account. Once that happens, once the shock passes, every law shatters. Every rule of conduct, of proper behaviour, it all vanishes. Then the hounds inside each and every one of us are unleashed.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“The statues shifted. Some straightened. Some hunched down as if beneath terrible burdens. The statues—my kin. My sisters, my brothers. There are none to look upon us now, none to see us, none to wonder at who we once were, at who shaped us with such . . . loving hands. As she watched, they began, one by one, falling into dust. 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. Statues are never mute. Their silence is a roar of words. Will you hear? Will you listen?”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“And there was another truth, one that seemed on the surface to contradict the first one. The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god’s name. And see in themselves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgement, the weapon you wield delivers – and let us not be coy here – naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“If by that you mean that there is no progress, that even the notion of progress is a delusion, and that history is nothing more than a host of lessons nobody wants to pay attention to, then yes, there is no point. Not in writing it down, not in teaching it.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“So much had changed inside him. He was no believer in causes, not any more. Certainty was an illusion, a lie. Fanaticism was poison in the soul, and the first victim in its inexorable, ever-growing list was compassion. Who could speak of freedom, when one’s own soul was bound in chains?”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“He looked across at the huge warrior beside him. ‘What’s your name at least?’ The giant glanced at him. ‘Yes,’ he said with a sharp nod. ‘I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. Toblakai. And you?’ ‘Crokus. Crokus Younghand.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I was once a thief.’ ‘Be one again,’ said Karsa, teeth bared, ‘and steal me a Hound’s life this night.’ Shit. ‘I’ll try.’ ‘That will do,’ the Toblakai replied.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“His old name was on the toll of the fallen, after all, and beside it was Blackdog Wood, 1159 Burn’s Sleep.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“He suddenly drew out the latest weapon in his arsenal, a long-knife. ‘See this? Just like the kind Kalam used. It’s a damned fast weapon, but I can’t see it doing much against armour.’ ‘Where Kalam stuck them there wasn’t no armour. Throat, armpit, crotch – you should give it to Smiles.’ ‘I grabbed it to keep it from her, idiot.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Young? He’d hear his own harsh, pained laugh. Oh, no, not this lass. She’s old. She walked under a blood-red moon in the dawn of time, did this one. Her face is the face of all that cannot be fathomed, and she’s looking you in the eye, Whiskeyjack, and you’ll never know what she’s thinking.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Pray, do not speak to me of weather Not sun, not cloud, not of the places Where storms are born I would not know of wind shivering the heather Nor sleet, nor rain, nor of ancient traces On stone grey and worn Pray, do not regale the troubles of ill health Not self, not kin, not of the old woman At the road’s end I will spare no time nor in mercy yield wealth Nor thought, nor feeling, nor shrouds woven To tempt luck’s send Pray, tell me of deep chasms crossed Not left, not turned, not of the betrayals Breeding like worms I would you cry out your rage ’gainst what is lost Now strong, now to weep, now to make fist and rail On earth so firm Pray, sing loud the wretched glories of love Now pain, now drunken, now torn from all reason In laughter and tears I would you bargain with the fey gods above Nor care, nor cost, nor turn of season To wintry fears Sing to me this and I will find you unflinching Now knowing, now seeing, now in the face Of the howling storm Sing your life as if a life without ending And your love, sun’s bright fire, on its celestial pace To where truth is born Pray, An End to Inconsequential Things Baedisk of Nathilog”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“He turned back, leaving Samar to mull on his words. Inventions cast moral shadows, she well knew, better than most, in fact. But…could simple convenience prove so perniciously evil? The action of doing things, laborious things, repetitive things, such actions invited ritual, and with ritual came meaning that expanded beyond the accomplishment of the deed itself. From such ritual self-identity emerged, and with it self-worth. Even so, to make life easier must possess some inherent value, mustn’t it?”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“He could smell an idiot from fifty paces off. He watched their sly evasions, listened to their bluster, and wondered again and again why they could never reach that essential realization, which was that the amount of effort engaged in hiding their own stupidity would serve them better used in cogent exercise of what little wits they possessed. Assuming, of course, that improvement was even possible. There were too many mechanisms in society designed to hide and indeed coddle its myriad fools, particularly since fools generally held the majority. In addition to such mechanisms, one could also find various snares and traps and ambushes, one and all fashioned with the aim of isolating and then destroying smart people. No argument, no matter how brilliant, can defeat a knife in the groin, after all. Nor an executioner’s axe. And the bloodlust of a mob was always louder than a lone, reasonable voice.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“The simplicity of blood, a detail whispering of antiquity, of primeval origins. A spirit, then, before whom a handful of savages once bowed. There had been many such entities, once, born of that primitive assertion of meaning to object, meaning shaped by symbols and portents, scratchings on rock-faces and in the depths of caves. No shortage…but tribes died out, were winnowed out, were devoured by more powerful neighbours. The secret language of the scratchings, the caves with their painted images that came alive to the pounding of drums—those most mysterious cathedrals of thunder…all lost, forgotten. And with that fading away of secrets, so too the spirits themselves dwindled, usually into oblivion.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Death’s precipice, whether first glimpsed from afar or discovered with the next step, was ever a surprise. A promise of the sudden cessation of questions, yet there were no answers waiting beyond. Cessation would have to be enough.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Denigration afflicted our vaunted ideals long ago, but such inflictions are difficult to measure, to rise up and point a finger to this place, this moment, and say: here, my friends, this was where our honour, our integrity died. The affliction was too insipid, too much a product of our surrendering mindful regard and diligence. The meanings of words lost their precision – and no-one bothered taking to task those who cynically abused those words to serve their own ambitions, their own evasion of personal responsibility. Lies went unchallenged, lawful pursuit became a sham, vulnerable to graft, and justice itself became a commodity, mutable in imbalance. Truth was lost, a chimera reshaped to match agenda, prejudices, thus consigning the entire political process to a mummer’s charade of false indignation, hypocritical posturing and a pervasive contempt for the commonry. Once subsumed, ideals and the honour created by their avowal can never be regained, except, alas, by outright, unconstrained rejection, invariably instigated by the commonry, at the juncture of one particular moment, one single event, of such brazen injustice that revolution becomes the only reasonable response. Consider this then a warning. Liars will lie, and continue to do so, even beyond being caught out. They will lie, and in time, such liars will convince themselves, will in all self-righteousness divest the liars of culpability. Until comes a time when one final lie is voiced, the one that can only be answered by rage, by cold murder, and on that day, blood shall rain down every wall of this vaunted, weaning society.”
― Steven Erikson, The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen