Paradise belonged to the innocent. Which was why it was and would ever remain empty. And that is what makes it a paradise.
You are very easily exasperated, my dear. If you’re a leaf trembling on a wide, deep river, relax and ride the current. It’s always worked for me, I assure you.
Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.
Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering. Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them. Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death.
When you’ve burned the bridges behind you, don’t go starting a fire on the one in front of you.
Never, dear gods. Never mess with mortals.
All they get around here is stories. Stories don’t make you bleed. Stories don’t make you go hungry, don’t give you sore feet. When you’re young smelling of pigshit and convinced there ain’t a weapon in all the damn world that’s going to hurt you, all stories do is make you want to be part of them.
Name none of the fallen, for they stand in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.
Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.
The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.
I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast.
What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think.
Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us.
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.
People don’t change to suit their god; they change their god to suit them.
Giving advice to a child is like flinging sand at an obsidian wall. Nothing sticks. The brutal truth is that we each suffer our own lessons – they can’t be danced round. They can’t be slipped past. You cannot gift a child with your scars – they arrive like webs, constricting, suffocating, and that child will struggle and strain until they break. No matter how noble your intent, the only scars that teach them anything are the ones they earn themselves.
In war everyone loses. This brutal truth can be seen in the eyes of every solider in every world.
Too many regrets. Lost chances – and with each one passing the less human we all became, and the deeper into the nightmare of power we all sank.
All those bickering worshippers, each one convinced their version is the right one. Imagine getting prayers from ten million believers, not one of them believing the same thing as the one kneeling beside him or her. Imagine all those Holy Books, not one of them agreeing on anything, yet all of them purporting to be the word of that one god. Imagine two armies annihilating each other, both in that god’s name. Who wouldn’t be driven mad by that?
The courage of husbands is directly proportionate to the proximity of the wife.