82
" Many adults, in the indurated immobility of years, acquire a fear of places they have never been, even as they long for something different in their lives, something new. But this new thing is a world of the fantastical, formless in answer to vague longings, and is as much defined by absence as presence. It is a conjuration of emotions and wishful imaginings, which may or may not possess a specific geography. Achieving such a place demands a succession of breaks with one's present situation, always a traumatic endeavour, and upon completion, why, sudden comes the fear. "
― Steven Erikson , Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)
86
" His gaze worked its way down the squalid street, building to building, the decrepit remnants of what had once been a thriving community. Intent on its own destruction, even then, though no doubt few thought that way at the time. The forest must have seemed endless, or at least immortal, and so they had harvested with frenzied abandon. But now the trees were gone, and all those hoarded coins of profit had slipped away, leaving hands filled with nothing but sand. Most of the looters would have moved on, sought out some other stand of ancient trees, to persist in the addiction of momentary gain. Making one desert after another … until the deserts meet. "
― Steven Erikson
88
" Children understood at a very young age that doing nothing was an expression of power. Doing nothing was a choice swollen with omnipotence. It was, in fact, godly.
And this, she now realized, was the reason why the gods did nothing. Proof of their omniscience. After all, to act was to announce awful limitations, for it revealed that chance acted first, the accidents were just that—events beyond the will of the gods—and all they could do in answer was to attempt to remedy the consequences, to alter natural ends. To act, then, was an admission of fallibility "
― Steven Erikson , Dust of Dreams (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #9)
92
" Clotted rivets turned underfoot. Fragments that might be bone skittered and danced along the muddy bottom, carried every which way by the currents.
Dissolution seemed to be the curse of the world, of all the worlds.
All that broke, all that failed, wandered down to some final resting place, lost to darkness, and this went beyond ships on the sea and the lives of those ships.
Whales, dhenrabi, the tiniest crustacean. Plans, schemes, and grandiose visions. Love, faith, and honour. Ambition, lust and malice.
He could reach down and scoop it all into his hands, watching the water tug it away, fling it out into a swirling, momentary path of glittering glory, then gone once more. "
― Steven Erikson , Reaper's Gale (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #7)
