64
" Sadness was, she well knew, not something that could be cured. It was not, in fact, a failing, not a flaw, not an illness of spirit. Sadness was never without reason, and to assert that it marked some kind of dysfunction did little more than prove ignorance or, worse, cowardly evasiveness in the one making the assertion. As if happiness was the only legitimate way of being. As if those failing at it needed to be locked away, made soporific with medications; as if the causes of sadness were merely traps and pitfalls in the proper climb to blissful contentment, things to be edged round or bridged, or leapt across on wings of false elation. "
― Steven Erikson , Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)
65
" 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)
73
" This was, as far as he was concerned, the real mystery of civilization – and for all that he exploited it he was, by the end, no closer to understanding it. This willingness of otherwise intelligent (well, reasonably intelligent) people to parcel up and then bargain away appalling percentages of their very limited lives, all in service to someone else. And the rewards? Ah, some security, perhaps. The cement that is stability. A sound roof, something on the plate, the beloved offspring each one destined to repeat the whole travail. And was that an even exchange? "
― Steven Erikson , Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)
76
" He’d had, perhaps, too much wine. Enough to weaken a certain resolve, the one having to do with recognizing his own maturity, that host of years behind him of which he was constantly reminded by the dwindling number of covetous glances flung his way. True, one might call it experience, settling for those women who knew enough to appreciate such traits. But a man’s mind was quick to flit from how things were to how he wanted them to be, or, even worse, to how they used to be. As the saying went, when it came to the truth, every man was a duellist sheathed in the blood of ten thousand cuts. "
― Steven Erikson , Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)
78
" To drive children into labour is to slaughter artists, to scour deathly all wonder, the flickering dart of imagination eager as finches flitting from branch to branch – all crushed to serve grown-up needs and heartless expectations. The adult who demands such a thing is dead inside, devoid of nostalgia’s bright dancing colours, so smooth, so delicious, so replete with longing both sweet and bitter – dead inside, yes, and dead outside, too. Corpses in motion, cold with the resentment the undead bear towards all things still alive, all things still warm, still breathing. Pity these ones? Nay, never, never so long as they drive on hordes of children into grisly labour, then sup languid of air upon the myriad rewards. "
― Steven Erikson , Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)