Quotes from Joe Abercrombie

You would have had to look far and wide to find anyone less beautiful than the big nine-fingered bastard. He sat in his saddle slumped over like some great sack of rice. Slow-moving, scratching, sniffing, chewing like a big cow. Trying to look like he had no killing in him, no mad fury, no devil. She knew better. He nodded to her and she scowled back. He was a devil wearing a cow's skin, and she was not fooled.

If you build your boat from cheese, d'you see, you can't wail at the heavens when it sinks, for cheese is known to be a poor material for boat-building.

Taking vengeance... it might not answer no questions. It sure won't make the world a fairer place or the sun shine warmer. But it's better'n not taking it. It's a damn stretch better.

Life being what is is, one dreams of revenge.

Men become accustomed to poison by degrees" Victor Hugo

But you love to play the good man, don't you? Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an excuse.

The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that. The casualties are many.

Who knows why anyone does anything? The world's a complicated bloody place." "Everyone has their reasons ... It's just a question of knowing what they are. Then the world's simple.

chambers and rattled even the iron-bound door in its frame. It taunted the flames in the firepit and they spat and crackled in their

It was a fact, he was only now beginning to realise, that the conversation of the drunk is only interesting to the drunk.

I've made peace with myself." "Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win." "Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting.

It's a newsbill. They tell you what's happening.' Orso thought about that. 'Or they tell you what to think about what's happening.' He thought more. 'Or the really successful ones just confirm what you already think about what's happening.

Kings needs cool tempers.

But these were desperate times. And in desperate times, one must sometimes call upon the services of monsters.

And then he realised then that he had not lost all those times in the training square because he had lacked the skill, or the strength, or even a hand. He had lacked the will.

We are leaders. War is what happens when we fail.

Revenge. I swear, is there a more pointless, destructive, unsatisfying motive in all the world?

The dead can forgive. The dead can be forgiven. The rest of us have better things to do.

This wasn't fantasies, it was life. And life had a habit of kicking her in the cunt. But

A wise man once told me you have to be realistic.

Un hombre que dedica toda su atención a hacer el bien y ninguna a las consecuencias es un hombre peligroso.

It's a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.

The door beside him opened sharply and Glokta snapped his head round, doing his best to hide a grimace as his neck bones crunched. Lord Ingelstad stood

Gorm's minister frowned up at them. Interested, but not wanting to seem interested. "Don't toy with me, boy." "Never been much good at toying," said Brand. "I had a short childhood." Mother