" We do naught but scratch the world, frail and fraught. Every vast drama of civilizations, of peoples with their certainties and gestures, means nothing, affects nothing. Life crawls on, ever on. She wondered if the gift of revelation—of discovering the meaning underlying humanity—offered nothing more than a devastating sense of futility. "

― Steven Erikson , Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2)