I respect my limitations, but I don't use them as an excuse.

Stone and sea are deep in life Two unalterable symbols of the world Permanence at rest And permanence in motion Participants in the power that remains

Are you a person—with volition and maybe some stubbornness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising—or are you a tool? A tool just serves its user. It’s only as good as the skill of its user, and it’s not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something special—something more than you can do for yourself—you can’t use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises will work in your favor. You have to use something that’s free to not be what you had in mind.

However you look at it, in these books "power" tends to be an expression of the essential nature of the person or being whose power it is. On those occasions when we've seen Lord Foul act directly, he seems to exert the withering force of pure scorn. IMHO, that's pretty intense.

This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken.

Steven Erikson is an extraordinary writer. I read Gardens of the Moon with great pleasure. And now that I have read it, I would be hard pressed to decide what I enjoyed more: the richly and ominously magical world of Malaz and Genabackis; the large cast of sympathetically-rendered characters; or the way the story accumulates to a climax that hits like machinegun fire. My advice to anyone who might listen to me is, Treat yourself to Gardens of the Moon. And my entirely selfish advice to Steven Erikson is, write faster.

"And you require no answers", Foamfollower was laughing in his gladness, "You are sufficient to every question".