Quotes from Scott Lynch

I weep again for your hardship," said Locke. "Forced by cruel circumstance to throw garden parties.

Probably Verrari," muttered the senior, who was methodically torturing a piece of ivory with a slender carving knife. He wanted it to come out like a sculpted terrace he'd seen at the Temple of Iono, alive with lovely relief and fantastical representations of drowned men taken by the Lord of the Grasping Waters. What he seemed to be producing more closely resembled a lump of white dogshit, life-size. "Sooner trust a sailing ship to a blind drunkard with no hands than a Verrari.

I need an election adjusted." "How adjusted?" "As a cautious estimate?" Patience turned to the window and stared out into the rain. I need it rigged from top to bottom.

I think I can stand up through!" He demonstrated the questionable optimism of of this pronouncement by falling on his face.

When someone like you pushes the world, the world pushes back. Other people are likely to get hurt. Am I clear?

You can knock down kingdoms on a whim. What you need is someone to make sure you don't get hit by a carriage when you cross the street.

Ravelle, 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.

Your moral education's over." Jean stared up into the sky as the dockside receded and Bug took them out into the canal's heart. "Now you're going to learn a thing or two about war.

Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don't need to justify it to anyone . . . not even to ourselves.

Well, it certainly is nice to be free from the threat of that lamp, my boy." Chains drew a last breath of smoke, then rubbed his dwindling sheaf of tobacco out against the roof stones. "Was it informing for the duke? Plotting to murder us?

Do you have a name?" asked Jean. "Lots. All of them lovely and none of them true," she replied.

Go fold yourself in half," said Locke, "and lick your ass.

You've come to the only house in Karthain with coffee worth murdering for. We have seven distinct blends, from the aromatic Syresti dry to the thick—' 'I'll take the kind I don't have to think about.' 'The very best kind of all.' Josten snapped his fingers, and a nearby waiter hurried off.

That's a generous appraisal of our foresight

I'm no one you want to learn from.

Have we been neglecting our prayers this week? Did one of us fart in a temple or something?

but tonight I'm on leave from everything. No 'Spire, no archon, no Durenna, no Lexicon, no navigational tables. Just simple arithmetic. Drink plus drinker equals drunk. Join me.

No," said Stragos. "You'll be returning and landing soon enough. For now, I just wanted you to see it…and I wanted to tell you a little story. I have in my service a particularly unreliable captain, who has until now done a splendid job of concealing his shortcomings." "Words cannot express how truly sorry I am to hear that," said Locke.

What?" Jean glared at Locke and ground his teeth together. "You miserable little sneak, how could you—" "What? How dare I contemplate what you were going to do to me? You self-righteous strutting cock, I'll—" "What?" shouted Jean. "—I'll throw myself at you, and you'll beat the shit out of me," said Locke. "And then you'll feel awful! How about that, huh?

But this doesn't mean I'm getting attached to you.

It had been strange at first, getting used to the rhythm of a city where the sun simply fell beneath the horizon like a quiescent murder victim each night

feeling like you wanted desperately to die was fine evidence that you had yet to do so.

AN OLD Camorri proverb has it that the only constant in the soul of man is inconstancy;

I am hard pressed on my right; my center is giving way; situation excellent. I am attacking." General Ferdinand Foch