Quotes from Joe Abercrombie

But that's what war is. A lot of folk getting killed that don't deserve it.

When the fighting is over you dig, if you're still alive. You dig graves for your dead comrades, A last mark of respect, however little you might have had for them. You dig as deep as you can bothered, you dump then in, you cover them up, they rot away and are forgotten. That's the way it's always been.

Eider frowned. Something for her to think about, perhaps? "I would have thought your pain would give you empathy." "Empathy? What's that?" Glokta winced as he rubbed at his aching leg. "It's a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.

A man with a balding pink head and a heavy chain of office started towards him. One weak chin had clearly not been weak enough, and he had opted for several spread across his fur-trimmed collar.

The thing about history is you don't know what the right side is till long afterwards, and by then it hardly matters.

No strength like looking weak.

A king needs to be seen. And to be seen to be seen.

Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes. And most of us would far rather have a king with no friends and no enemies, than a king with plenty of both. Most of us would rather have things stay as they are, than risk an uncertain future.

A petty gesture, perhaps, but the weak must thrive on small revenges.

No one likes to shake hands with the man who empties the latrine pits eitherm but pits have to be emptied all the same. Otherwise the world fills up with shit.

We are all dead men, brother, in due course. It is how we get there that counts.

Didn't want to kill him, but in her experience it was far better to hit a man too hard than not hard enough.

the room. "Now it seems anyone's son can get an education, and a business, and become rich. The merchant guilds: the Mercers, the Spicers and their like, grow steadily in wealth and influence. Jumped-up, posturing commoners dictating to their natural betters. Their fat and greedy fingers, fumbling at the strings of power. It is almost too much to stand." He gave a shudder as he paced across the floor.

Men are greedy, aren't they? No gratitude. They don't think about what they've already got from you, only about what they can get next.

Her father would've said it's a good thing, to show mercy. Long as you also show, when it's needful, that you can make of your heart a stone.

Nothing but a drizzle. The sun can't always shine. You have to be realistic!

For the briefest moment he almost kissed her, and he almost pushed her off the roof. Perhaps it was only because he could not decide which to do that he did neither one.

Logen stepped round one of the stones and found himself looking straight into a face, close enough almost to feel its breath on his cheek. A young face. A good-looking one, with clean skin and a sharp nose, wide-open brown eyes. Logen smashed his forehead into it.

but if you let other people's smugness make you angry you'll be angry all the time.

The old king and his old cunts glowered at the young heir and his young cunts, naught praiseworthy on either side but all jealous of what the others had even so. Matching groups, in many ways; Clover could almost see each warrior squaring up to his counterpart. The mean one, the handsome one, the one who hardly spoke, the one who spoke too much.

But fear's a healthy thing, long as it makes you think.

Sometimes, when someone lives in danger for too long, the only time they feel alive is when death's breathing on their shoulder.

I never did a thing to deserve loyalty like that.' 'Sometimes loyalty's an excuse for something else.

But a man shows his quality when circumstances are against him, his father always used to say. Where was the glory in easy victories?