Quotes from Joe Abercrombie

The ex-storekeeper shrugged. "Then far be it from me to turn the desperate away. Welcome one and all to my mansion!

That's kings for you. The shit ideas are always someone else's.

Looked at with the benefit of hindsight, his life, which at time had felt like a series of ingenious escapes, resembled rather more closely a succession of nooses, most of them self-tied. The self-tied ones will still hang you, though.

What did I do?" She turned and looked at him, standing there, wet hair dripping round his face. "What did I do, back there?" "You got us through." "I meant-" "You got us through. That's all.

has taught the two of us

Now she was happy to be evil, if it meant she could be clean.

So people are even stupider in a war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they'll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There's no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more.

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." "It's

No one was safe in Valbeck now. Perhaps no one ever truly was. Perhaps safety was a lie people told themselves so they could carry on.

My master used to say that knowledge is the root of power, but I rather suspect power has a golden root these days.

But there's no beating the Great Leveller. No man comes back from the mud.

CATTLE DIE, KINDRED DIE, EVERY MAN IS MORTAL: BUT I KNOW ONE THING THAT NEVER DIES, THE GLORY OF THE GREAT DEED. FROM HÁVAMÁL, THE SPEECH OF THE HIGH ONE

To the starving man, bread is beautiful. To the homeless man, a roof is beautiful. To the drunkard, wine is beautiful. Only those who want for nothing else need find beauty in a lump of rock.

They tell you drink makes you happy, but what they mean is it makes happy folk happier. They don't tell you that it makes unhappy folk more fucking unhappy than ever.

He was also becoming aware of an unpleasant smell. Damn it. I've shit myself again.

Now go, and if I hear of more fighting, let it be of how the two of you beat someone else together.

You can pick out the bits that suit your story and toss the unhappy truths to the wind.

The gods hate those who plan badly, and help those with good friends, good swords, and good sense. Worry less about what the gods might do and more about what you can,

Never to want for anything, or work for anything, or show the tiniest grain of self-discipline in a whole life must give a man a strange outlook on the world,

Logen tenía que haberse olido que uno no se debe fiar nunca de un tipo que no tiene pelo.

But what does it matter? It is not how you die, but how you lived, that counts.

Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. Selfishness belongs to children, and to half-wits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one's own troubles. In order to act like a King, one need only treat everyone else like

And they'll follow you?' asked one of Forest's aides. 'They'll follow anyone who feeds them,' said Jurand. 'Especially if he points them in the direction of home.

Folk aren't just cowards or heroes. They're both and neither, depending on how things stand. Depending on who stands with them, who stands against. Depending on the life they've had. The death they see waiting. They