" Midnight comes often in the dusk of my life,
when I look back upon all that I have survived.
The deaths of so many for whom I cared and
loved in my heart, have expunged all sense of
glory from my thoughts. To have escaped those
random fates has lost all triumph. I know you have seen me, friend, my lined
face and silent regard, the cold calcretions that
slow my embittered pace, as I walk down the
last years, clothed in darkness as are all old
men, haunted by memories … "

― Steven Erikson , Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #3)