No Life Forsaken Quotes

“If there is a chance to negotiate regarding the children they’re holding—’ ‘They’re holding children, sir. There’s nothing to negotiate.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“It is a shallow mind, carelessly gliding over all the senses to which we are gifted, to see nothing in a desert. To look upon flat lands or even a distant rumple of grass-hided hills, and utter the pronouncement that nothing of worth is to be seen, that the wind is empty and devoid of voice, that the scents of the air bespeak of dust and naught else. Within, two glorious gifts have been silenced. The first is the imagination, left so deadened by disuse as to yield an inner landscape far more denuded and lifeless than any desert or plain. The second is the gift of stillness, wherein wonder expands to every horizon; where, in mindful awakening, this stillness is revealed to be alive with motion, with the subtle play of hue, light and shadow, with the faint ticking of stones baked by the sun, with the hum and hiss of winged insects, with the waving grasses at the feet of wind-bent trees in valleys and dried stream-beds. And here wanders yet another ghost, named Time, so willing to meet your eye and, perhaps, wink. The shallow mind turns away from all of this, charged by other things inside its inner world of colourless absences, with its one voice listing without pause the boredom of its own failing. I weep for those flat eyes that see so little of what can only be described as a feast of revelation, of beauty, and the forlorn melancholy singing its eternal aria. Is it only me then, whom you may see if you care to, out on that land, standing alone, drunk on wonder?”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“You serve a cause no one can agree on, by rules sundered insensible by clashing interpretations. You claim a single light, yet each and every one of you holds a different candle, which alone you pronounce true. You declare your belief unimpeachable, even as you damn your neighbour’s. And yet, despite all of this, a holy army will see itself unified in its purpose, and indeed act so, at least until the day is done, and in the dusk following, why, it rips itself apart.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“It wasn’t the best of situations”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“After all”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“Patriotism is an expensive indulgence the wealthy rarely choose”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“There is no end to the dark corners in which a soul can hide.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“Faith in the inevitable is wasted effort, because, being inevitable, it requires no faith.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“If freedom means nothing but the privilege of washing one’s hands of all responsibility, then evil will indeed thrive, in abundance.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“And Stult, who saw all of that and could have shouted to wake the others, but didn’t, because his love for Gracer was a deep, all-devouring thing, like a root longer than its tree was tall. Poor, doomed root, forever searching for a single drop of life-giving water from Gracer, but that would never happen, because Gracer knew nothing of what love meant.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“The doctrine is muddled, Adjunct. Once you apply holy words to secular interpretation, the very sacredness of those words becomes tarnished. Oppression of rival beliefs answers mundane needs, not godly ones. The same for political independence.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“The tangled mess of vegetation below was an olive tree, twisted into itself by crowding walls and scant light. Whatever water fed it came from fetid runnels of spilled sewage in the canted, jumbled remnants of broken pave-stones amidst the riot of roots. The tree’s triumphant crown of leaves was just beneath her feet. A dip of her toes could brush the highest ones, gliding lightly over their dusty-leather surface, making them dip and nod as she liked.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“Relationships never stood still, not for a moment. Those that did not end still changed, evolved, devolved, twisting away from whatever existed before. Sometimes, it was best to simply cut the tie.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“The slavery that was a mind in chains was far more powerful and pernicious than the physical version, and these teachers knew it. Their faiths would have it so, these very chains, this obliteration of the questioning, challenging mind. All the dictates of a soul’s purpose, all the prescriptions and prohibitions, all the blasphemies, heresies and mutual vigilance, all the horrible punishments for the simple act of objecting.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“Where the coward leads, only cowards follow.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“Mallick Rel, this is an old imperial game. But do you heed the history? I think not. No, you imagine yourself an exception, the solitary puppet-master destined to succeed where all others failed. Such is hubris. Another lesson of history so easily discarded.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“But even the universe felt cruel this night, to offer such luscious fruit yet deny the plucking, the tasting thereof. Perhaps there was some wisdom in Hadalin’s open revelry in simply watching, seeing; in mere proximity to all that he desired, despite the ache of such impossible longing.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“No faith at all, Bornu Blatt?’ ‘None. Yet I do not reject the existence of immortals, of gods, spirits, ghosts and the like. It would be presumptuous of me to assert that the universe is defined by the limits of my perception – and worse, my interpretation of said perception. The blind man does not see the flames yet they will burn him nonetheless. And are we mortals not mostly blind?”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“None. Yet I do not reject the existence of immortals, of gods, spirits, ghosts and the like. It would be presumptuous of me to assert that the universe is defined by the limits of my perception – and worse, my interpretation of said perception. The blind man does not see the flames yet they will burn him nonetheless. And are we mortals not mostly blind?”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken

“Bodies were found all the time. The destitute slain by the cough thriving in weakened lungs. Drunks who took one swallow too many. Various addicts with their twitchy limbs and marble eyes, carving the last bit of brain from their skulls. Sickness and infections and perhaps the most pernicious killer of all: neglect. Neglect by society, by whatever remnants of family remained, this vast, devouring void that was the state of being unloved, uncared for, unacknowledged. All too often, that cause of death belonged to children, abandoned and cast out and basically wiped off the slate of a culture's regard, a nation's ledger of the useful. Small bodies huddled in alleys, around which rats danced.”
― Steven Erikson, No Life Forsaken