Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.
Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light.
Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.
The stars, they are as the sun. Each star. Every star. And those spheres- they are worlds, realms, each one different yet the same.
We go to partake of death. And it is in these moments, before the blades are unsheated, before blood wets the ground and screams fill the air, that the futility descends upon us all. Without our armor, we would all weep.
If not for a dumb beast’s incomprehension at its own destruction beneaththe loving hands of two heartbroken children.
Gods, I wish the world was full of passive women.He thought for a moment longer, then scowled. On second thoughts, what a nightmare that’d be. It’s the job of a man to fan the spark into flames, not quench it…
Dour music has its own beauty, for the song of ruin is most fertile.
Eventually every man reaches a point where every memory is unwelcome
Laws decide wich forms of oppression are allowed, Lord. And because of that, those laws are servants to those in power, for whom oppression is given as a right over those who have little or no power.
The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises.
Words were numbers were codes were formulae. Words held secret maps, the measuring of paces, the patterns of mortal minds, of histories, of cities, of continents and warrens.
Now get going. You’ll find a way of calm through.””And you, Mael?””I’ll drop in later. I’ve things for you to do, Withal. But for now,” he faced inland, “I’m going to beat a god senseless.
Purest light will blind as surely as absolute darkness.
The trust I have…for some people…comes down to how well I know them, and then it’s a matter of my trusting them to do what I think they’re going to do.
The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.
Memory did not let go; it remained the net dragged in one’s wake, with all sorts of strange things snarled in the knotted strands.
Now, invite me in, before I lose my temperature.’‘Temper, you mean.’‘No, temperature. It’s getting chilly.
What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think.
It’s our nature, isn’t it? Again and again, we cling to the foolish belief taht simple solutions exist
For we are all bound in stories, and as the years pile up they turn to stone, layer upon layer, building our lives.
Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.
There’s little value in seeking to find reasons for why people do what they do, or feel the way they feel. Hatred is a most pernicious thing, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself.” “With words.
I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.
He had been born into debt, as had his father and his father before him. Indenture and slavery were two words for the same thing.
He rubbed at his face, as if seeking to awaken the right words from muscle, blood and bone.
The prince is blind to subtlety. He knows his own ignorance and stupidity so is ever suspicious of others, especially when they say things he does not understand. One cannot negotiate when dragged in the wake of emotions.
There are times, Kruppe murmurs, when celibacy born of sad deprivation becomes a boon, nay, a source of great relief.
If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in. We are desperate with our dreams. What – oh, what – does that say?
One day, perhaps, you will see for yourself that regrets are as nothing. The value lies in how they are answered.
All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture, and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear. So, I have plenty of sympathy for self-defense mechanisms, especially among artists.