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" Rich, you said?” The Trell struggled to drag the conversation away from what he knew to be a looming precipice. “More like mired in minutiae. Probably explains why it’s dust and ashes. Arguing over seeds in the wind while barbarians batter down the gates. Indolence takes many forms, but it comes to every civilization that has outlived its will. You know this as well as I. In this case it was an indolence characterized by a pursuit of knowledge, a frenzied search for answers to everything, no matter the value of such answers. A civilization can as easily drown in what it knows as in what it doesn’t know. Consider,” he continued, “Gothos’ Folly. Gothos’s curse was in being too aware – of everything. Every permutation, every potential. Enough to poison every scan he cast on the world. It availed him naught, and worse, he was aware of even that. "
― Steven Erikson , Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2)
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" Lost,” the captain repeated. “I am surely that.” “Yet you and I, Lull, we are lost late in our lives. Look upon the children, and despair.” “How to answer this? I must know, Duiker, else I go mad.” “Sleight of hand,” the historian said. “What?” “Think of the sorcery we’ve seen in our lives, the vast, unbridled, deadly power we’ve witnessed unleashed. Driven to awe and horror. Then think of a trickster—those you saw as a child—the games of illusion and artifice they could play out with their hands, and so bring wonder to your eyes.” The captain was silent, motionless. Then he rose. “And there’s my answer?” “It’s the only one I can think of, friend. Sorry if it’s not enough.” “No, old man, it’s enough. It has to be, doesn’t it?” “Aye, that it does.” “Sleight of hand.” The historian nodded. “Ask for nothing more, for the world—this world—won’t give it.” “But where will we find such a thing?” “Unexpected places,” Duiker replied, also rising. Somewhere ahead, shouts rose and the convoy resumed its climb once more. “If you fight both tears and a smile, you’ll have found one. "
― Steven Erikson , Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2)