Joe Abercrombie Quotes

He wondered for an idle moment if he'd ever see her again, but it didn't look likely. You have to be realistic, after all, and getting through tomorrow seemed like quite the ambition. ~ Joe Abercrombie

One is always ready for war." Uthil gently twisted the pommel of his sword so the naked blade flashed in the gloom. "Or never. ~ Joe Abercrombie

He blamed every fucker available excepting, of course, the one who was actually to blame, the one sitting in his saddle and getting colder, hungrier, and more lost with every unpleasant moment. 'Shit!' he roared at nothing. ~ Joe Abercrombie

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. Stolicus ~ Joe Abercrombie

A dark-skinned young woman sat on the roof of the aftcastle, one leg swinging as she watched the new slaves shuffle across. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The general with the smallest numbers should remain always on the offensive. ~ Joe Abercrombie

I span the entire geek spectrum. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The more you kill, the better you get at it. And the better you get at killing, the less use you are for anything else. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Well, well, well. The mighty Uthman-ul-Dosht comes with mercy, and offers peace. These are strange times we live in, eh, Tulkis? Have the Gurkish learned to love their enemies? Or simply fear them?'
'One need not love one's enemy, or even fear him, to desire peace. One need only love oneself.'
'Is that so?'
'It is. I lost two sons in the wars between our peoples. One at Ulrioch in the last war. He was a priest, and burned in the temple there. The other died not long ago, at the siege of Dagoska. He led the charge when the first breach was made.'
Glokta frowned and stretched out his neck. A hail of flatbow bolts. Tiny figures, falling in the rubble. 'That was a brave charge.'
'War is harshest on the brave. ~ Joe Abercrombie

It may be a union in name, but they fight each other tooth and nail. 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. The casualties are many. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Bayaz chuckled. "The Bloody-Nine, scared of shadows? I'd never have believed it." "Every shadow's cast by something," growled the Northman, ~ Joe Abercrombie

We are here for our amusement. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The giant's blue left arm uncoiled from the Bloody-Nine's body, his blue hand seized hold of the Bloody-Nine's wrist, but there could be no stopping it. When the sapling seed finds a crack in the mountain, over long years its deep roots will burst the very rock apart. So the Bloody-Nine strained with every muscle and let the slow time pass, hissing out his hatred into the Feared's twitching mouth. The blade crept onwards, slowly, slowly, and its very point bit into painted flesh, just below the giant's bottom rib. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Don't deceive yourself. Everyone is guilty of something, and even the innocent can be a threat. Perhaps it takes small crimes to prevent bigger ones, Colonel West, but it's up to bigger men than us to decide. ~ Joe Abercrombie

You know my work. One more step and I'll set to work on you, you fucking swollen pig. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Did you see it?" asked Yarvi.
"I had that questionable privilege."
"What do you think?"
"She is wretched. She is all pride and anger. She has too much confidence and too little. She does not know herself." The figure pushed back her hood. A black-skinned old woman with a face lean as famine and hair shaved to gray fuzz. She picked her nose with one long forefinger, carefully examined the results, then flicked them away "The girl is stupid as a stump. Worse. Most stumps have the dignity to rot quietly without causing offense."
"I'm right here," Thorn managed to hiss from her hands and knees.
"Just where the drunk boy put you." The woman flashed a smile at Brand that seemed to have too many teeth. "I like him, though: he is pretty and desperate. My favorite combination. ~ Joe Abercrombie

They say you can see all the beauty in the world in the way a hanged man swings. ~ Joe Abercrombie

In violent times folk like to kneel to violent men. In peaceful times they remember they're happier standing. ~ Joe Abercrombie

What is it about power, that it has to be higher up than everyone else? Can a man not be powerful on the ground floor? ~ Joe Abercrombie

The definition of all right changes with the passing winters, I find. I'm about all right by the standards of the last few days. Twenty years ago I'd have considered this close to death. ~ Joe Abercrombie

I apologise, your Highness. Murder can be a painful business. ~ Joe Abercrombie

You can weep over each other's hidden nobility when we're safe! ~ Joe Abercrombie

No matter how great and glorious the making, time will unmake it. No matter how strong the word, strong the thought, strong the law, all must return to chaos. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Gold and silver is everything to everyone. Some of us have enough of it to pretend otherwise. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Patience is the parent of success, Stolicus wrote. ~ Joe Abercrombie

To fight my enemies I need friends behind me, and I'm clean out of friends. You have to be realistic. It's been a while since my ambitions went beyond getting through each day alive. ~ Joe Abercrombie

-'Would it help if I said I was very drunk?'
Brachio shook his head. - 'We all were'
-'Shitty childhood?'
-'Mummy used to leave me in a cupboard.'
-'Shitty adulthood?'
-'Whose isn't? ~ Joe Abercrombie

Crowds rarely cheer too loudly for the defeated, no matter how hard they fought, how great their sacrifices, how long the odds. Maidens might wet themselves over cheap and worthless victories, but they don't so much as blush for 'I did my best ~ Joe Abercrombie

I have a conscience, but it's a feeble, withered shred of a thing. It couldn't protect you or anyone else from a stiff breeze.' Glokta sighed, long and hard. The room was too hot, too bright, his eyes were sore and twitchy and he rubbed at them slowly as he spoke. 'You could not even guess at the things that I have done. Awful, evil, obscene, the telling of them alone could make you puke.' He shrugged. 'They nag at me from time to time, but I tell myself I had good reasons. The years pass, the unimaginable becomes everyday, the hideous becomes tedious, the unbearable becomes routine. I push it all into the dark corners of my mind, and it's incredible the room back there. Amazing what one can live with. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The fool strikes. The wise man smiles, and watches, and learns. Then strikes. ~ Joe Abercrombie

You carry on. That's what he'd always done. That's the task that comes with surviving, whether you deserve to live or not. You remember the dead as best you can. You say some words for them. Then you carry on, and you hope for better. ~ Joe Abercrombie

People liked to think of beauty as some natural gift, but Savine firmly believed that just about anyone could be beautiful, if they worked hard at it and spent enough money. It was merely a question of emphasising the good, disguising the bad and painfully squeezing the average into the most impressive configuration. Very much like business, really. ~ Joe Abercrombie

And Cracknut Whirrun?' asked Drofd.
'Straightforward. An old man up near Ustred taught me the trick of cracking a walnut in my fist. What you do is - '
Wonderful snorted. 'That ain't why they call you Cracknut.'
'Eh?'
'No,' said Yon. 'It ain't.'
'They call you Cracknut for the same reason they gave Cracknut Leef the name,' and Wonderful tapped at the side of her shaved head. 'Because it's widely assumed your nut's cracked.'
'They do?' Whirrun frowned. 'Oh, that's less complimentary, the fuckers. I'll have to have words next time I hear that. You've completely bloody spoiled it for me! ~ Joe Abercrombie

Luck is a woman. She's drawn to those that least deserve her. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Memories sharp enough to cut himself on - the smells, the sounds, the feel of the air on his skin, the desperate hope and mad anger. ~ Joe Abercrombie

They say the seed you scatter will be the seed you harvest, ~ Joe Abercrombie

The man screamed, and screamed behind his mask, and the Bloody-Nine laughed, and twisted the blade. Logen might have pitied him, but Logen was far away and the Bloody-Nine had no more pity in him than the winter. Less even. He stabbed, and cut, and cut, and smiled, and the screams bubbled and died, and he let the corpse drop to the cold stones. His fingers were slick with blood and he wiped it on his clothes, on his arms, on his face - just as it should be. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Different men have different ways, Logen had told him once, and you have to have fear to have courage. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Vick learned long ago that might have is a game with no winners. Few games do have winners, in the end. ~ Joe Abercrombie

What's your name?'

She planted one elbow on the stretch of counter Zuri had wiped so she could lean closer and draw out both syllables. 'Savine.'

'That's a lovely name.'

'Oh, if you enjoy the tip, you'll go mad for the whole thing.'

'That so?' he purred at her. 'How does it go?'

'Savine… dan…' And she leaned even closer to deliver the punchline. 'Glokta.'

If a name had been a knife and she had cut his throat with hers, the blood could not have drained more quickly from his face. He gave a strangled cough, took a step back and nearly fell over one of his own barrels. ~ Joe Abercrombie

A whole new thing. A forging of the humble parts of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it ... a cheese-trap. ~ Joe Abercrombie

There can be a greater power in words than in all the steel within the Circle of the World. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Grom-gil-Gorm," she said softly as she rode between Laithlin and Yarvi. "Breaker of Swords." Mother Isriun's horse shied back out of her way. "Maker of Orphans." Thorn reined in beside him, his frowning face lit red by the blazing light of her elf-bangle, and she leaned from her saddle to whisper.
"Your death comes. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Summers past love company, seems every time you turn around there's more o' the bastards at your back. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Nothing like being wanted, is there? Wanted by someone you want. Always seems like magic, that something can feel so good but cost nothing. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Life's a queue of small irritations with the Last Door at the end. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Conscience and the cock-rot are hardly equivalent,' snapped Lorsen.
'Indeed,' said Cosca, significantly. 'The cock-rot is rarely fatal. ~ Joe Abercrombie

the greater a man's power swells, the smaller his good quantities shrivel ~ Joe Abercrombie

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, ~ Joe Abercrombie

Hurray', shouted Glokta. 'Porridge again!'He looked over at the motionless Practical. 'Porridge and honey, better than money, everything's funny, with porridge and honey! ~ Joe Abercrombie

Walk in God's footsteps, Ferro Maljinn." "Huh. They have no God here." "Say rather that they have many." "Many?" "Had you not noticed? Here, each man worships himself. ~ Joe Abercrombie

An open mind is like to an open wound. Vulnerable to poison. Liable to fester. Apt to give its owner only pain. ~ Joe Abercrombie

That's what courage is. Taking your disappointments and your failures, your guilt and your shame, all the wounds received and inflicted, and sinking them in the past. Starting again. Damning yesterday and facing tomorrow with your head held high. Times change. It's those that see it coming, and plan for it, and change themselves to suit that prosper. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Trust is like glass. Lovely, but only a fool rests lots of weight on it. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The gods love to laugh at a happy man, however. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The tongueless torturer and the flower of chivalry. An unlikely alliance. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Prickomo fucking cocksca. That bastard old arsehole-fucker. ~ Joe Abercrombie

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? ~ Joe Abercrombie

Shivers heaved out a sigh. "Just trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I'm one of those ... you've got a word for it, don't you?"
"Idiots?"
He looked sideways at her. "It was a different one I had in mind."
"Optimists."
"That's the one. I'm an optimist."
"How's it working out for you?"
"Not great, but I keep hoping."
"That's optimists. You bastards never learn. ~ Joe Abercrombie

When it came to hatred, Brodd Tenways had a bottomless supply. He was one of those bastards who can't even breathe quietly, ugly as incest and always delighted to push it in your face, leering from the shadows like the village pervert at a passing milkmaid. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The wise speaker first learns when to stay silent ~ Joe Abercrombie

She shrugged. "I fell. I'm a clumsy fool." "I know how you feel. I'm such a fool I knocked half my teeth out and hacked my leg to useless pulp. Look at me now, a cripple. It's amazing where a little foolishness can take you, if it goes unchecked. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Scourge of the Betrayer is as harsh and profane as anything RichardK Morgan or Joe Abercrombie serves up. Fortunately, Saylards has the skills -and the humor - to pull it off. Snappy dialogue, political intrigue, shadycharacters, gripping action sequences, a poor guy that has no idea what he'sgotten himself into ... Yeah, there's a lot to like about this debut. ~ David Anthony Durham

The ground must be a general's best friend, or it becomes his worst enemy. ~ Joe Abercrombie

One of my greatest pleasures is a good cut of meat, and the bloodier the better. Just show them the flame, I always tell my cook. Just show it to them. ~ Joe Abercrombie

The Dogman?" He looked grey. Grey-clothed, grey-haired, grey-faced, like the life had leaked out of him to leave a wispy husk a sudden gust might whisk away. "The man looks a touch past his best."

Shivers cast a lazy eye towards Scale, and back. He had a way of saying a lot with a few words. "Least he had one. ~ Joe Abercrombie

It's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterwards. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough. ~ Joe Abercrombie

This was a place of learning, and wonder, and great beauty.'
'Time has not been kind to the place.'
'Time is never kind. ~ Joe Abercrombie

It's an easy thing to make a man a carcass. He knew a thousand ways to do it. But once you've done it, there's no going back. One minute he's a man, all full up with hopes, and thoughts, and dreams. A man with friends, and family, and a place where he's from. Next minute he's mud. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Rejoice in what you have. Power, wealth, fame, they are ghosts! They are like the breeze, impossible to hold. There is no grand destination. Every path ends at the Last Door. Revel in the sparks one person strikes from another." She huddled into her cloak of rags. "They are the only light in the darkness of time. ~ Joe Abercrombie

A man with a missing eye after a man with a missing finger. There's a song in there somewhere, I reckon. ~ Joe Abercrombie

You seem happy enough," came Monza's voice, "for a man about to risk his life."

Shiver's opened his eyes and turned his grin on her. "I've made peace with myself."

"Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win."

"Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting."

"I'm starting to think that's the only victory worth a shit," she muttered, almost to herself. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Treat a man like a dog and sooner or later he'll bite you, ~ Joe Abercrombie

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. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Secrets, power. It's all a metaphor. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Only friends get left behind. Enemies are always at your heels. The ~ Joe Abercrombie

It is so often the small things overlooked which leave our schemes in ruins. ~ Joe Abercrombie

I'm quite the humorist, for a woman who hires killers. ~ Joe Abercrombie

What is t that I did to deserve this? And what is it that Luthar did? Is he not just as I was? Arrogant, vain, and selfish as hell? Is he a better man? Then why has life punished me so harshly, and rewarded him so richly?
But Glokta already knew the answer. The same reason that innocent Sepp dan Teufel languishes in Angland with his fingers shortened. The same reason that loyal General Vissbruck died in Dagoska, while treacherous Magister Eider was let live. The same reason that Tulkis, the Gurkish Ambassador, was butchered in front of a howling crowd for a crime he did not commit.
He pressed his tongue into one of his few remaining teeth. Life is not fair. ~ Joe Abercrombie

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

By swap news do you mean drink?" "I do, and that excessively. ~ Joe Abercrombie

I can see her on your arm like an empty dress, a kind of echo at a higher pitch. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Bloody North," said Shev as she picked her way towards it and had a tentative drag at the ropes. "Even their bridges are shit."
"Their men are good," said Javre, clattering out with no fear whatsoever. "Far from subtle, but enthusiastic."
"Great," said Shev as she edged after, exchanging a mutually suspicious glance with a crow perched atop one of the posts. "Men. The one thing that interests me not at all."
"You should try them."
"I did. Once. Bloody useless. Like trying to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even speak your language, let alone understand the topic."
"Some are certainly more horizontally fluent than others."
"No. Just no. The hairiness, and the lumpiness, and the great big fumbling fingers and ... balls. I mean, balls. What's that about? That is one singularly unattractive piece of anatomy. That is just ... that is bad design, is what that is. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Bury it with me. Time was I thought it was a blessing and a curse. But it's only a curse, and I ain't about to curse some other poor bastard with it. Time was I thought it was reward and punishment both. But this is the only reward for men like us.' And Whirrun nodded down towards the bloody spear-shaft. 'This or … just living long enough to become nothing worth talking of. Put it in the mud, Craw.' And he winced as he heaved the grip into Craw's limp hand and pressed his dirty fingers around it.
'I will.'
'Least I won't have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?'
'Every sword's a weight to carry. Men don't see that when they pick 'em up. But they get heavier with time. ~ Joe Abercrombie

It still seems a strange decision, though, for the tortured to turn torturer."
"On the contrary, nothing could be more natural. In my experience, people do as they are done to. You were sold by your father and bought by your husband, and yet you choose to buy and sell. ~ Joe Abercrombie

You don't have to be ready. You just have to go. ~ Joe Abercrombie

He was developing a sneaking feeling he had found his way onto the wrong side. Again. But it's not always easy to tell when you're picking. Perhaps, as Kahdia once told him, you are on the wrong side as soon as you pick one. ~ Joe Abercrombie

He glanced over at Luthar, sneering down into his bowl as though it was full of piss. No respect. He glanced over at Ferro, staring yellow knives at him through narrowed eyes. No trust. He shook his head sadly. Without trust and respect the group would fall apart in a fight like walls without mortar.
Still, Logen had won over tougher audiences, in his time. Threetrees, Tul Duru, Black Dow, Harding Grim, he'd fought each one in single combat, and beaten them all. Spared each man's life, and left him bound to follow. Each one had tried their best to kill him, and with good reasons too, but in the end Logen had earned their trust, and their respect, and their friendship even. Small gestures and a lot of time, that was how he'd done it. 'Patience is the chief of virtues,' his father used to say, and 'you won't cross the mountains in a day.' Time might be against them, but there was nothing to be gained by rushing. You have to be realistic about these things. ~ Joe Abercrombie

War is no place for good men. ~ 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. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Have a smile for breakfast, you'll be shitting joy by lunch. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Probably been sure he'd got the right god, the right king, the right cause. Everyone finds a way to make their side the right one, after all. ~ Joe Abercrombie

When do I rest, then?" "In the songs of great heroes, do you hear often of resting? ~ Joe Abercrombie

You can be as great a man as you please while you're alive. Makes not a straw of difference once you go back to the mud. And ~ Joe Abercrombie

You have to realistic about these things. ~ Joe Abercrombie

A few words can be more effective than a lot of blades, even in such times as these. ~ Joe Abercrombie

If you wanted to see my cock that badly, you could just have asked.'
'No doubt a thing o' haunting beauty but i came for something else. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Perhaps we'll have some answers, at least, before the end. I always dreamed of dying well-informed. ~ Joe Abercrombie

What are you going to do?' whispered Temple.
'There was a time I'd have gone charging over there without a thought for the costs and got bloody.' Lamb lifted the glass and looked at it for a moment. 'But my father always said patience is the king of virtues. A man has to be realistic. Has to be.'
'So what are you going to do?'
'Wait. Think. Prepare.' Lamb swallowed the last measure and bared his teeth at the glass. 'Then get bloody. ~ Joe Abercrombie

So the fox killed his brother, the wolf. (Mother Scaer) ~ Joe Abercrombie