Quotes from Scott Lynch

I mean, wouldn't it be grand, to have a legend that grew while you were alive to enjoy it? To sit in a tavern and hear all the people around you speaking of what you'd done, with no notion that you were among them as flesh and blood?

Hey," said Locke, scratching his stubble absently with his quill. "That sounds suspiciously like wisdom, damn your eyes. Why must you always flounce about being wiser than me?" "Doesn't require much conscious effort.

You seem to have a real talent for improvised dishonesty.

Oh. You have a magic boy. Why didn't you say so?" The priest scratched his forehead beneath the white silk blindfold that covered his eyes. " Magnificent . I'll plant him in the fucking ground and grow a vine to an enchanted land beyond the clouds.

It was raining when Amarelle Parathis went out just after sunset to find a drink, and there was strange magic in the rain. It came down in pale lavenders and coppers and reds, soft lines like liquid dusk that turned luminescent mist on the warm pavement. The air itself felt like champagne bubbles breaking against the skin. Over the dark shapes of distant rooftops, blue-white lightning blazed, and stuttering thunder chased it.

There was no point in stealing well or wisely if the loot couldn't be stashed somewhere safe.

A voice called out, cold as chloroform and old shame.

You have to be a dead-eyed dirty-souled maniac to want to spend your extended life trading punches with other maniacs. Once you've seized that power, there's no getting off the merry-go-round. You fight like hell just to hold on or you get shoved off.

The only person who gets away with Locke Lamora games—" "—is Locke Lamora—" "—because we think the gods are saving him up for a really big death. Something with knives and hot irons—" "—and fifty thousand cheering spectators.

Sophara scrawled orders on a slate and handed it to one of the libationarians, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the contents and locations of all the bottles kept the bar running.

May they all be stricken with the screaming fire-shits." He sipped his

I'm sorry," muttered Locke. "I was so keen to come to Tal fucking Verrar." "It's not your fault. We were both eager to hop in bed with the wench; it's just shit luck she turned out to have the clap.

Enthusiasm is the first step, Artfulness comes later.

That's great, Jean. I'm not just exiled; I'm being plumped up for slaughter.

anyone in command feigns ease when death is near. We do it for those around us, and we do it for ourselves. We do it because the sole alternative is to die cringing. The difference between an experienced leader and an untested one is that only the untested one is shocked at how well they can pretend when their hand is forced.

What thieves of wonder are these poor senses.

I desire you as deeply as I ever have, but I understand that the fervor of a desire is irrelevant to its justice.

Calo had dark liquor-colored skin and hair like an inky slice of night; the tautness of the flesh around his dark eyes was broken only by a fine network of laugh-lines (though anyone who knew the Sanza twins would more readily describe them as smirk-lines). An improbably sharp and hooked nose preceded his good looks like a dagger held at guard position.

It smelled something like a keg of bad beer overturned in a mortician's storage room on a hot summer's day.

Sorcery's impressive enough, but it's their fucking attitude that makes them such a pain.

I shall grind your bones to powder," he hollered, transfixing the three Gentlemen Bastards with his gleaming eyes. "And with that dust I'll make cement for paving stones, and for a hundred years to come you'll have no rest beneath the crush of strange wheels and the tramp of strange boots! Drunkards will make their unclean water upon you, and I shall laugh to think of it

How would you be able to detect a fart over your natural odor, Sanza?" "For shame," said Galdo. "There's no Sanzas here, remember? I'm an Asino." "Oh yes," said Locke with a yawn. "Yes, you certainly are.

I don't get it,' said Locke, gently tugging at the scruff of Regal's neck. 'I never even liked cats all that much.' 'Surely you realize,' said Patience, 'that cats are no great respecters of human opinion.

That sounds dangerous,'said Jean. 'For anyone else, maybe.For Gentlemen Bastards,we,it;s just what we do.' 'We?' 'We.