Joe Abercrombie Quotes

I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.

Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.

Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.

You have to realistic about these things.

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

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

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.

Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

You were a hero round these parts. That's what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short.

You should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.

Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be. What is my story now, I wonder?

Well. What can we do, except try to do better?

Sometimes it doesn't matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.

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.

Honour, eh? What the hell is that anyway? Every man thinks it's something different. You can't drink it. You can't fuck it. The more of it you have the less good it does you, and if you've got none at all you don't miss it.

Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us.

People love to see death. It reminds them that however mean, however low, however horrible their lives become… at least they have one.

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?

But that was civilisation, so far as Logen could tell. People with nothing better to do, dreaming up ways to make easy things difficult.

You can never have too many knives, his father had told him. Unless they're pointed at you, and by people who don't like you much.

When you're in hell, only a devil can point the way out.

The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. Still, the struggle itself is worthwhile. Knowledge is the root of power, after all.

Those with the least always lose the most in war.

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.

You have to learn to love the small things in life, like a hot bath. You have to love the small things, when you have nothing else.

That was the difference between a hero and a villain, a soldier and a murderer, a victory and a crime. Which side of a river you called home.

Strange, how the best moments of our lives we scarcely notice except in looking back.

A man lost in the desert must take such water as he is offered, no matter who it comes from.

Sometimes men change for the better. Sometimes men change for the worse. And often, very often, given time and opportunity . . .’ He waved his flask around for a moment, then shrugged. ‘They change back.

If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best.

History is littered with dead good men.

Chose? If you believe that I chose any part of the pitiful shadow of a life you see before you, you are very much mistaken. I chose glory and success. The box did not contain what was written on the lid.

Has it ever occured to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes. But a sword...a sword has a voice. Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear. A gentle word. A word of caution. Do you hear it? Now, compare it to the sword half drawn. It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it? Now compare it to the sword full drawn. It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?

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

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

The wise wait for their moment, but never let it pass.

My name is Nicomo Cosca, famed solider of fortune, and I am here for dinner.

Knives,’ muttered Calder, ‘and threats, and bribes, and war?’ Bayaz’ eyes shone with the lamplight. ‘Yes?’ ‘What kind of a fucking wizard are you?’ ‘The kind you obey.

Things aren't what they used to be' is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.

The only difference between war and murder is the number of dead.

Hard words are for fools and cowards.

I'm a fucking coward." "Maybe." Craw jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Whirrun's corpse. "There's a hero. Tell me who's better off.

People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.

Round and round in circles we go, clutching at successes we never grasp, endlessly tripping over the same old failures. Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods.

Armour …’ mused Whirrun, licking a finger and scrubbing some speck of dirt from the pommel of his sword, ‘is part of a state of mind … in which you admit the possibility … of being hit.

An open mind is like to an open wound,' growled Glokta. 'Vulnerable to poison.

All an arsehole knows about is shit. ~ Dogman

Some things have to be done. It's better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.

One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.

It always amazes me, how swiftly problems can be solved, once you start cutting things off people.

What do the dice say?" Dice say nothing. They are dice." Why roll'em, then?" They are dice. What else would I do with them?

The wise speaker first learns when to stay silent

It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.

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!

A man who does't want opinions should keep his own mouth shut.

Broken hearts heal with time, but broken teeth never do.

Something dug into the Bloody-Nine's back, but there was no pain. It was a sign. A message in a secret tongue, that only he could understand. It told him where the next dead man was standing.

Body found floating by the docks...

What is the world coming to when an honest man cannot burn corpses without suspicion?" asked Nothing.

Power makes all things right. That is my first law, and my last. That is the only law that I acknowledge.

There was nothing to be gained by losing his temper. There was never anything to be gained by that.

But you love to play the good man, don't you? Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an excuse.

People have often accused me of inconsistency but i feel that i have always, at any given junction, done the same thing. Exactly what i pleased.

Treat a man like a dog and sooner or later he’ll bite you,

You don’t have to be ready. You just have to go.

It's hard to stay calm when you're terrified, helpless, alone, at the mercy of men with no mercy at all.

A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time and never gotten anywhere.

Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter.

The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.

There was no such thing as luck. Luck was a word idiots used to explain the consequences of their own rashness, and selfishness, and stupidity. More often than not bad luck meant bad plans.

Everything frightens me, and it's well that it does. Fear is a good friend to the hunted, it's kept me alive this long. The dead are fearless, and I don't care to join them.

One should learn the lessons of history. The mistakes of the past need only be made once. Unless there are no other choices. ~ Bayaz

The trouble with running is wherever you run to, there you are.

You may need two hands to fight someone, but only one to stab them in the back. (Yarvi)

Good steel bends, but never breaks. Good steel stays always sharp and ready. Good steel feels no pain, no pity, and above all, no remorse

Kill me?' The Bloody-Nine laughed louder than ever. 'I do the killing, fool!

I’m trying to put things in the best light, but a turd’s a turd, whatever light it’s in!

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

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he's a lover.

So you love war. I used to think you were a decent man. But I see now I was mistaken. You're a hero.

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.

I will confess!" shrieked Teufel, "I will confess!" "Excellent," said Glokta brightly. "Excellent," said Severard. "Etherer," said Practical Frost.

Take everything as a compliment, you can never be insulted.

Life is a series of things we would rather not do.

First it is done to us, then we do it to others, then we order it done. Such is the way of things

They have that most strange and dangerous of qualities,” said Cosca. “They think they’re in the right.

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.

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

When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it. Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

All you can do is take each day as it comes. Try and do the best you can with what you're given. You won't always do the right thing, but you can try. And you can try to do the right thing next time. That, and stay alive.

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.

I’ve fought in three campaigns,” he began. “In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. I’ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I’ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I’ve known little else. I’ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that’s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper. “I’ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. I’ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I’ve run away myself more than once. I’ve pissed myself with fear. I’ve begged for my life. I’ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.” He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. “There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.

They appear somewhat unreliable," he murmured. "Unreliable? Nonsense, Superior! Out of luck is all, and we both know how that goes, no? Why, there's not a man of them I wouldn't trust my mother to." "Are you sure?" "She's been dead these twenty years. What harm could they do her now?

If you have a plan," hissed Sumael from the corner of her mouth, "now would be the time." "I have a plan," said Nothing. "Does it involve swords?" A pause. "All my plans do." "Do you have a sword?" Another. "No." "How will you succeed without one?" Muttered Sumael. A third. "Death waits for us all.

He is dead and I, the self serving coward that I am, still live. Life is not fair. There is no pattern. People die at random. Something everyone knows, but no one truly believes. They think that when it comes to them there will be a lesson, a meaning, a story worth telling. That death will come to them as a dread scholar, a fell knight, a terrible emperor. 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.

You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all...fit. Be right." "All my life, more of less" “All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain’t no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I’ve learned … just to stick in the place I’m at. Just to be the man I am.

This is stupid." "Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drink. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be...better. Be heroic. Only it's just the same. In fact do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it's worse. There aren't many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in 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.

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.