.

[quotescurator]

In the absence of what might be imposed, a child will fashion the structure of the world to suit itself. Created from a mind barely awake – and clearly not even that when it came to introspection – that world becomes a strange place indeed. But let us not rail at the failings of nearby adults tied by blood or whatever. Some children are born in a cage – it’s already there, in their skulls – and it’s a dark cage.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

The son, after all, is but an extension of the mother – at least so the mother believed, there in some inarticulate part of her soul, unseen yet solid as an iron chain. Assail the child and so too the mother is assailed, for what is challenged is her life as a mother, the lessons she taught or didn’t teach, the things she chose not to see, to explain away, to pretend were otherwise than what they were.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

I will tell you a secret – just one, and keep in mind what I said earlier: we women have many secrets. I’m feeling generous today, so listen well. A woman is well pleased with a mate. He is her island, if you will, solid, secure. But sometimes she likes to swim offshore, out a way, floating facing the sun if you will. And she might even dive from sight, down to collect pretty shells and the like. And when she’s done, why, she’ll swim back to the island. The point is, husband, she doesn’t want her mate’s company when swimming. She needs only to know the island waits there.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

Keep things simple, give the flies not much to land on, that was the secret. The secret to staying sane.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

When language is lifeless what does it serve?

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

Ah, I despair, or I would if I cared enough. No, instead, I will make some ashcakes. Which I will not share.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

She had made her discovery, of one whose strength was absolute. Before whom she herself felt weak but in a most pleasant, most satisfying way – one to whom she might surrender whatever she chose without fearing he would one day use it against her.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

But there were others whose strength was of a much rarer kind. Not easy to find, because they revealed nothing. They were quiet. They often believed themselves to be much weaker than they were. But when pushed too hard, they surprised themselves, finding that they would not back away another step, that a wall had risen in their souls, unyielding, a barrier that could not be passed. To find one such as this was the most precious of discoveries.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

I greet you as guests and so will not crush the life from you and devour your souls with peals of laughter. No, instead, I will make some tea.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

It is a sign of weakness to shine blinding bright with one’s own power.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

Acceptable levels of misery and suffering! Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

Nothing really ever changes unless in service to convenience.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

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.

Sadness belonged. As rightful as joy, love, grief and fear. All conditions of being.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

To live a hard life was to make solid and impregnable every way in, until no openings remained and the soul hid in darkness, and no one else could hear its screams, its railing at injustice, its long, agonizing stretches of sadness. Hardness without created hardness within.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

Life fears chaos. It was ever thus. We fear it more than anything else, because it is anathema. Order battles against dissolution. Order negotiates cooperation as a mechanism of survival, on every scale, from a patch of skin to an entire menagerie of interdependent creatures. That cooperation, of course, may not of essence be necessarily peaceful – a minute exchange of failures to ensure greater successes.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

It is all right to fail, friend. I do not demand the impossible of you. Do not weep at that moment. For me, find a smile to announce the end. Fare well.

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

[quotescurator]

‘Redeemer,’ whispered Seerdomin.

‘Yes?’

‘Answer me one question. I beg you.’

‘Ask.’

And he faced the god. ‘Are you worth it?’

‘Am I worth the sacrifice you must make? No, I do not think so.’

‘You will not beg to be saved?’

Itkovian smiled. ‘Will you?’

No. I never have. He rose to his feet, found that the tulwar remained in his hand. He hefted the weapon and eyed Salind. Can I defy her need? Can I truly stand against that? ‘If not for your humility, Redeemer, I would walk away. If not for your…uncertainty, your doubts, your humanity.’

— Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)