Quotes from Joe Abercrombie

She looked down at them, both sleeping. Ardee on her side, one long-lashed eye closed and her mouth wide open. Harod on his back, tiny hands palm-up as if he was surrendering. So small. So perfect. So vulnerable. She remembered something her father once told her. Being a parent means always being afraid. Afraid for your children. Afraid of your children.

Rulf laid a single arrow beside the body, and Koll reckoned he was struggling to keep back tears. 'From nothing, to nothing,' he croaked out. Father Yarvi laid his withered hand on the old helmsman's arm. 'But what a journey in between.

Still alive," he muttered to himself.

Clover sat with Wonderful at Black Calder's table, in the shadows further from the firepit. There was less gold over here, and less laughter, and less ale, but a lot more power.

The Great Leveller," Dogman whispered to himself, since he was in a thoughtful frame of mind. That's what the hillmen call him. Death, that is. He levels all differences. Named Men and nobodies, south or north. He catches everyone in the end, and he treats each man the same.

What do you mean like ? Like, like like?

Vialine counted the points off on her small fingers. "So quickness to strike, and cleverness, and aggression without conscience, honor or pity." Thorn held up her empty hands. "They've got me everything I have.

The gods are angry," muttered Nothing, frowning. "When aren't they?" said Yarvi.

In general, Temple was forced to concede, he was a man who had failed to live up to his own high standards. Or even to his low ones. He had undertaken a galaxy of projects. Many of those any decent man would have been ashamed of. Of the remainder, due to a mixture of bad luck, impatience and shiftless obsession with the next thing, he could hardly remember one that had not tailed off into disappointment, failure or outright disaster.

In the end, people don't really care much about being free. They want to be warm and well fed and to not have to worry. In particular, they want to not have to worry about being thrown off a tower for wearing the wrong shoes.

One minute you think you're the most powerful man in the world. The next you can't even breathe by yourself. Some kinds of power are nothing but tricks of the mind.

Perhaps they had discovered that when enemies fall, they leave a hole.

Hardbread looked concerned, as usual. Red Hat looked grim, as usual. Oxel had his usual shifty sideways squint like the knight herald was another man's sheep he was thinking of making off with. And Shivers just looked like Shivers, which was probably the most troubling of the lot.

Î?i aminte?ti de mor?i cât po?i mai bine. Roste?ti câteva cuvinte pentru ei. Apoi mergi mai departe ?i speri la ceva mai bun.

I have to fight fire with fire.' 'That'll win you naught but ashes,

He would've liked his axe to hand, but hoping for a thing often brought on the opposite.

You have to love the small things, when you've nothing else.

I may be black bastard, but at least I know what I am.

Both so very young, and so very beautiful, and with all their happy, rich, and powerful lives ahead of them. Hurrah! Hurrah for them! My shrivelled turd of a heart bursts open with joy!

A man who's moved by grovelling will never get enough grovelling for his taste.

De un tiempo a esta parte, se formaban multitudes a la menor provocación. Risinau insistía en que se les permitiera. Había que fomentar la conversación nacional, decía. Había que politizar a las masas, decía. Risinau decía muchas cosas, pero en opinión de Vick ninguna de ellas significaba nada jamás.

That thought, as the misery of others often can, made him feel just a little better.

The one thing she hated worse than being fussed over was being ignored.

It could give you some tough moments, your word. Could force you into places you didn't want to be, could serve you up puzzles where the right path weren't easy to pick. But it wasn't mean to be easy, it was meant to be right. There were many men always did the easy thing, regardless.