Quotes from Joe Abercrombie

Straining and straining, getting nowhere, but unable to stop pushing in case the rock should fall and crush him. Meanwhile, arrogant bastards who were in just the same danger lazed on the slopes beside him saying, 'Well, it's not my rock.

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.

Mercy and weakness are the same thing in war, and there's no prize for nice behavior.

There's no disappointment like getting what you've always wanted...

Everyone finds a way to make their side the right one, after all.

Belief without evidence is the very hallmark of the savage.

The trouble with being able to lift heavy things is that when heavy things need lifting folk step out of the way and smile at you.

He would have liked to weigh his choices, but for that you need more than one.

What a place. Glokta stifled a smile. It reminds me of myself, in a way. We both were magnificent once, and we both have our best days far behind us.

Ain't it God's sword, fell from the sky? I thought it had to be passed on. Is it cursed?" Craw took up the reins and turned back to the north. "Every sword's a curse, boy.

Still, it was better to swear an oath and never follow through than not even to bother with the oath. Wasn't it?

But that's what growing up is, maybe. Realising what a fucking arse you've been.

You want a thing when you can't have it. When you get it you suddenly sprout doubts. Then when you think you might lose it you find you need it worse than ever.

Nothing had worked out the way he'd hoped. He should've expected it by now, maybe. After all, things never had before. And yet he kept on pissing into the wind. He was like a man whose door's too low, but instead of working out how to duck, keeps on smacking his head into the lintel every day of his miserable life. He wanted to feel sorry for himself, but he knew he deserved no better. A man can't do the things he'd done, and hope for happy endings.

One day you're something, so promising and full o' dares, so big the world's too small a place to hold you. Then, 'fore you know it, you're old, and you realise all them things you had in mind you'll never get to. All them doors you felt too big to fit through have already shut. Only one left open and it leads to nothing but nothing.

You have to have fear to have courage.

the more you learn the more you understand the size of your own ignorance.

The faster you run from the past, the faster it catches you. All you can do is turn to face it. Embrace it. Try and meet the future wiser for it.

Winning teaches you nothing," said Tunny. "You see what a man really is when he loses.

The goal of government, you see," and the Arch Lector prodded at the air with his bony forefinger, "is to load the unhappiness onto those least able to make you suffer for it.

Men can have all manner of deeply held beliefs about the world in general that they find most inconvenient when called upon to apply to their own lives. Few people let morality get in the way of expediency. Or even convenience. A man who truly believes in a thing beyond the point where it costs him is a rare and dangerous thing.

Very well, Practical Vitari, if you really can't resist me. You'll have to go on top, though, if you don't mind.

Welcome to my life of constant doubt, anxiety and occasional sudden and unpredictable horror, Javre. I hope you enjoy your fucking visit.

The beauty o' making yourself a promise is that no one else complains if you break it.