Time promised everything and delivered nothing.
For all your fears, love is not something you can forget. But you can turn your back on it.
The things said and the things not said. In the space in between, a thousand worlds. A thousand worlds.
You may believe that civilization deafens us with tens of thousands of voices, but listen well to that clamour, for with each renewed burst so disparate and myriad, an ancient force awakens, drawing each noise ever closer, until the chorus forms but two sides, each battling the other. The bloody lines are drawn, fought in the turning away of faces, in the stoppering of ears, the cold denial, and all discourse, at the last, is revealed as futile and worthless.
Sacrifice must be weighed by the pain of what is surrendered, and this alone was the true measure of a virtue’s worth.
The more you dream of one particular and pleasing thing, Ralata, the quicker it palls. The edges get worn down, the lustre fades. To leave such obsessions behind, dream of them often.
In success we shall find seeds of despair.
Power and immunity, a most deadly combination.
To be alone is to be ill, Warlord, not just spiritually, but physically as well.
What the soul can house, flesh cannot fathom.
My faith in the gods is this: they are indifferent to my suffering.
History meant nothing, because the only continuity was human stupidity. Oh, there were moments of greatness, of bright deeds, but how long did the light of such glory last? From one breath to the next, aye, and no more than that.
Kneel to one or many, but never – never, Kalyth – hold to a belief that but one god exists, that all that is resides within that god. Should you hold such a belief, then by every path of reasoning that follows, you cannot but conclude that your one god is cursed, a thing of impossible aspirations and deafening injustice, whimsical in its cruelty, blind to mercy and devoid of pity.
Shurq Elalle’s fate had taken a turn for the worse. Nothing to do with her profession, for her skills in the art of thievery were legendary among the lawless class. An argument with her landlord, sadly escalating to attempted murder on his part, to which she of course – in all legality – responded by flinging him out the window. The hopeless man’s fall had, unfortunately, been broken by a waddling merchant on the street below. The landlord’s neck broke. So did the merchant’s.
The hillside before them blurred, as if a curtain of wind-blown sand rose before it. A churning wind roiled through this strange mist.
Paran’s head snapped around. His eyes glittered.
Oh, Laseen,” she murmured, tears welling in her eyes, “I know why we fear this Jaghut Tyrant. Because he became human, he became like us, he enslaved, he destroyed, and he did it better than we could.” She lowered her head into her hands. “That’s why we fear.
Barring the necessary brains, of course,” Kruppe said, “which is my true skill – though one such as Coll would never understand such abilities, alien as they are to him.
Innocence was a blade of glory, yet it could blind on both sides.
Witness? Yes, you are witness. Even so, what I, Karsa Orlong, shall shape, you cannot imagine. No one can.