Quotes from Joe Abercrombie

So the fox killed his brother, the wolf. (Mother Scaer)

For a man reckoned clever, he got wedged in a lot of stupid corners.

You are too full of your own hopes to hold anyone else's.

There's no need to rush, Arch Lector. That's the trouble with good legs, you tend to run around too much. If you have trouble moving, on the other hand, you don't move until you damn well know it's time.

There are few ills a good cup of tea won't help with.

A man is measured by his enemies. Worthy ones can be more missed than friends.

The only difference between war and murder is the number of the dead.

People liked to think of beauty as some natural gift, but Savine firmly believed that just about anyone could be beautiful, if they worked hard at it and spent enough money. It was merely a question of emphasising the good, disguising the bad and painfully squeezing the average into the most impressive configuration. Very much like business, really.

Comes to be everything reminds you of something past. Somewhere past. Someone. Yourself, maybe, how you were. The now gets fainter and the past more and more real. The future worn down to but a stub.

Misjudgment is as much a part of life as unhappiness. It is nice to hold the power and make choices for everyone. But the risk of making any choice is always that you might make the wrong one. We must make our choices nonetheless. Fear of being a grown-up is a poor reason to remain a child.

But the risk of making any choice is always that you might make the wrong one. We must make our choices nonetheless. Fear of being a grown-up is a poor reason to remain a child.

Surprise makes brave men cowards, strong men weak, wise men fools.

Give me only evil men for friends, Verturio wrote. Them I understand.

Remember, though, that you are the king's observer, not the king's champion.

But that's war for you. An ugly business that only leaves bad men better off. Why folk insisted on singing about great warriors all the time, Rikke couldn't have said. Why not sing about really good fishermen, or bakers, or roofers, or some other folk who actually left the world a better place, rather than heaping up corpses and setting fire to things? Was that behaviour to encourage?

He'd played at being a different man, but it had all been lies. The hardest kind to see through. The kind you tell yourself.

And then Ardee herself was so much more complicated in person than she had been as a silent memory. Nine parts witty, clever, fearless, attractive. One part a mean and destructive drunk. Every moment with her was a lottery, but perhaps it was that sense of danger that struck the sparks when they touched, made his skin tingle and his mouth go dry . . .

It is easy to speak of the past, impossible to go there.

Threats for tomorrow don't cut very deep when today is so damn threatening.

You look especially beautiful this morning, Monza.' She sighed, as if that was an accident. As if she hadn't spent an hour preening herself before the mirror. 'Facts are facts. Stating them isn't a gift. You only prove you're not blind.' She yawned, stretched in her saddle, made him wait a moment longer. 'But I'll hear more.

There's always a worse case than your worst case, and more often than not, it happens.

Me atrevería a decir que un hechicero puede llegar a ser útil y demás, pero, o sea, ¿siempre tienen que actuar de una manera tan puñeteramente rara?

Monza raised her brows. A strange group she'd gathered, surely, but when you have a half-mad plan you need men at least half-mad to see it through. Sane ones might be tempted to look for a better idea.

Aliz sighed. "War is terrible, isn't it?" "It blights the landscape, throttles commerce and industry, kills the innocent and rewards the guilty, thrusts honest men into poverty and lines the pockets of profiteers, and in the end produces nothing but corpses, monuments and tall tales.