" 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