Quotes from Joe Abercrombie

Summers past love company, seems every time you turn around there's more o' the bastards at your back.

That's what an idiot does when he gets angry. He destroys whatever's nearest, even if it's his own house!

A whole new thing. A forging of the humble parts of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it...a cheese-trap.

But things are always going to be better, or were better long ago. No politician ever got anywhere by telling people things are just right as they are.

Strange how, as long as the hardship lasts, we can stand it. As soon as the crisis is over, the strength all leeches away in an instant.

Shoglig was talking shit. That old bitch didn't know when I was going to die at all. If I'd known that I'd surely have worn more armour.' Whirrun made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh, then winced, coughed, laughed again, winced again. 'Fuck, it hurts. I mean, you know it will, but, fuck, it really does hurt. Guess you showed me my destiny anyway, eh, Craw?

One step at a time,' he muttered to himself as he clambered up the slope. That was the only way to look at it. If you clenched your teeth hard enough, and took enough strides, you could get anywhere. One painful, weary, freezing, guilty step at a time.

You have to be realistic

What? A family?" Ninefingers frowned, rubbing grimly at the stump of his middle finger. "I did have one. And now I've got another. You don't pick your family, you take what you'er given and you make the best of it." He pointed at Ferro, then at Quai. "You see her, and him, and you?" He slapped his hand down on Jezal's shoulder. "That's my family now, and I don't pal on losing a brother today, you understand?

If a man seeks to change the world, he should first understand it.

West stared at her as she trudged off up the hill after the Northmen, hardly able to believe his ears. She was happy to bed that stinking savage, but he was too angry? It was so unfair he almost choked on his rage.

If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person? You have to be realistic.

Better to have steel to hand and find no trouble than find yourself in trouble with no steel to hand.

You want to be merciful. To stand in the light. I understand it. I admire it. But, my queen...Only the victors can be merciful.

A man without discipline is no better than a dog. A soldier without discipline is no better than a corpse. Worse, in fact. A corpse is no threat to his comrades.

Clean. Living. Captain.' 'Yes, Marshal Varuz,' mumbled Jezal. Six hours later he was drunker than shit.

What better foundation for an alliance than mutual hatred and suspicion?

Evil is not the opposite of good. It is what we call another man's notion of good when it differs from ours.

People would far rather believe a lurid lie than a sorry string of accidents. Would far rather believe the world is full of evil than full of bad luck, selfishness and stupidity.

It still seems a strange decision, though, for the tortured to turn torturer." "On the contrary, nothing could be more natural. In my experience, people do as they are done to. You were sold by your father and bought by your husband, and yet you choose to buy and sell.

When he'd made it thirty strides or so Logen turned around and looked back. The pot was sitting forlorn by the lake, already filling up with rainwater. They'd been through a lot together, him and that pot. "Fare you well, old friend." The pot did not reply.

But then it's difficult, isn't it, to make a passionate argument for what you already have? So boring. Whereas the delightful alternative? A bouquet of promises! A sackful of dreams! A glorious ship of fantasies, undamaged by collision with actually getting anything done.

Are you entirely sure of that knot?' asked Morveer. 'There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop'. 'Twenty-eight strides', said Friendly. 'What?' 'The drop'. A brief pause, 'That is not helpful'.

There aren't many good things don't have a splinter of selfishness in them somewhere, after all.