Tal

“This is how they survive. You must know this. You're too smart not to know this.
They paint the world full of shadows... and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it.

All this will be for nothing. We will have been for nothing. Defined by their histories... distorted to fit into their narrative... until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children.”
― Captain Flint

“But I cannot believe that there is all there is. I cannot believe that we are so poorly made as that.”
― Captain Flint

“He had told himself that it was an act of courage to let her go, to give her the final decision. Courage and sacrifice. He no longer believed that. There was no sacrifice made in being abandoned. There was no courage in doing nothing.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“People in great need were quick to find blame in themselves, quick to assume the burden of guilt for things they in truth had no control over and could not hope to change.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds