Joe Abercrombie Quotes

If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person?

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.

The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.

Travel brings wisdom only to the wise. It renders the ignorant more ignorant than ever.

Death is a bored clerk, with too many orders to fill. There is no reckoning. No profound moment. It creeps up on us from behind, and snatches us away while we shit.

I always thought of being together as the end of the work. Turns out it's where the work starts.

One act presses upon another, on a path we have no choice but to follow, and each time there are reasons. We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then we look up and find... this.

Strange, isn't it,' mused Glokta as he watched him struggle for air. 'Big men, small men, thin men, fat men, clever men, stupid men, they all respond the same to a fist in the guts. One minute you think you're the most powerful man in the world. The next you can't even breathe by yourself.

Armour... is part of a state of mind... in which you admit the possibility... of being hit.

Nem kell úgy rohanni főlektor. Ez a baj a jó lábakkal, az ember túl sokat futkos velük. Ha viszont nem megy olyan könnyen a mozgás, hát maradsz a seggeden, amíg nem vagy benne biztos, hogy ideje indulni.

Vajon összetört-e ő is annyi szívet, mint én fiatalkoromban? Most már aligha menne. Fél órába telik, mire összeszedem a bátorságomat, hogy felálljak. Jó ideje nem ríkattam meg más nőt, csak azoknak a feleségeit, akiket Anglandba száműztem.

Vajon holnap a csatornában fognak megtalálni? Holtan, felpuffadva… teljesen, de teljesen felismerhetetlenné válva?" Nem érzett mást a gondolatra, csak némi megkönnyebbülést. Nincs több lépcső.

- Már az elöljárók között is túl sokan vannak, akikben nem lehet megbízni. Manapság nem a király vagy az állam érdekeit tartják szem előtt, csakis a saját boldogulásukat. - Az elöljárók? Hogy nem lehet bennük megbízni? Elájulok a döbbenettől.

Names turned over by time, like the plough turning the soil. Bringing up the new while the old were buried in the mud.

Fear has made them sloppy. The world teeters at a precipe. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man's efficiency.

I spent half my childhood in the shadows. Hiding from my father or my brother. Creeping from a place of solitude to another. Seeing while unseen, and pretending I was a part of what I saw. Making up a life where I wasn't an outcast.

A man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he find entirely beyond sufferance

One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.” The fingers of her good hand plucked and scrabbled uselessly at his fist. “Love is a fine cushion to rest upon, but only hate can make you a better person.

A set of huge marble busts stared smugly down from on high: great merchants and financiers of Styrian history, by the look of them. Criminals made heroes by colossal success.

Are you entirely sure of that knot?' asked Morveer. 'There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop'.
'Twenty-eight strides', said Friendly.
'What?'
'The drop'.
A brief pause, 'That is not helpful'.