Joe Abercrombie Quotes & Sayings

Cosca smiled up at the dragon, hands on hips. 'It certainly is a remarkable curiosity. A magnificent relic. But against what is already boiling across the plains? The legion of the dumb? The merchants and farmers and makers of trifles and filers of papers? The infinite tide of greedy little people?' He waved his hat towards the dragon. 'Such things as this are worthless as a cow against a swarm of ants. There will be no place in the world to come for the magical, the mysterious, the strange. They will come to your sacred places and build . . . tailors' shops. And dry-goods emporia. And lawyers' offices. They will make of them bland copies of everywhere else.' The old mercenary scratched thoughtfully at his rashy neck. 'You can wish it were not so. I wish it were not so. But it is so. I tire of lost causes. The time of men like me is passing. The time of men like you?' He wiped a little blood from under his fingernails. 'So long passed it might as well have never been. — Joe Abercrombie

Does a king let his friends die for him?" Yarvi glanced guiltily across at Shadikshirram's sword, and remembered the feeling, punching, punching, the red knife in his red hand, and shivered under his stolen cloak. "Does a king stab women in the back?" The tears were still wet on Nothing's wasted face. "A good one sacrifices everything to win, and stabs whom he must however he can. The great warrior is the one who still breathes when the crows feast. The great king is the one who watches the carcasses of his enemies burn. Let Father Peace spill tears over the methods. Mother War smiles upon results." "That's what my uncle would have said." "A wise man, then, and a worthy enemy. Perhaps you will stab him in the back and we can watch him burn together. — Joe Abercrombie

Being in charge can seem like a thing iron-forged, but in the end it's just an idea everyone agrees to. — Joe Abercrombie

Jezal swallowed and hunched his shoulders, watching the chunks of long dead wood file slowly past like rows of tombstones. "I don't like this," he muttered under his breath.
"You think I do?" Bayaz frowned grimly over at him. "You think any of us do? Men must sometimes do what they do not like if they are to be remembered. It is through struggle, not ease, that fame and honor are won. It is through conflict, not peace, that wealth and power are gained. — Joe Abercrombie

The elves knew the true names of these rivers,' said Skifr, who'd made a kind of bed among the cargo to drape herself on. 'We call them Divine and Denied because those are as close as our clumsy human tongues can come. — Joe Abercrombie

Didn't seem likely, but what's the point of likely fantasies? — 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

You cannot expect all the heroes to survive a good song — Joe Abercrombie

You can always make enemies of your friends,' said Sumael. 'Making friends of your enemies is harder labor. — Joe Abercrombie

When you're down to small stakes, you have to play long odds. — Joe Abercrombie

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

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

Inquisitor Lorsen's thin lip curled. "There is truly nothing in you of what separates man from animal, is there? You are bereft of conscience. An utter absence of morality. You have no principle beyond the selfish."
Cosca's face hardened as he leaned forwards. "Perhaps when you have faced as many disappointments and suffered as many betrayals as I, you will see it - there is no principle beyond the selfish, Inquisitor, and men are animals. Conscience is a burden we choose to bear. Morality is the lie we tell ourselves to make its bearing easier. There have been many times in my life when I have wished it was not so. But it is so. — Joe Abercrombie

Hand of iron! Head of iron! Heart of iron!" And he lashed blindly with his sword over the shield wall. "Your death comes, sang the hundred! — Joe Abercrombie

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

A whore with a veil is mysterious. God's ways appear to be ... insane. — Joe Abercrombie

He could do anything and it would be right, for he had made himself a willing puppet of God's purpose and in so doing freed himself. He alone free, surrounded by slaves. — Joe Abercrombie

Body found floating by the docks... — Joe Abercrombie

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. — Joe Abercrombie

Men are brittle, I reckon. They don't bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them. — Joe Abercrombie

Where do we find allies?"
Father Yarvi smiled. "Among our enemies, where else? — Joe Abercrombie

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

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

Death waits for us all. Nothing's forever. Life's about making the best of what you find along the way. A man who's not content with what he's got, well, more than likely he won't be content with what he hasn't. — Joe Abercrombie

far as the reputations of young women are concerned, the less fucking the better. The reverse is true for young men of course. Hardly fair, but then life is unfair in so many ways, this one hardly seems worth commenting on." "Huh. — Joe Abercrombie

It was a look that gave her a tingle, all right, but not in a good way. In that look she saw her silly bloody hopes as twisted and broken as she'd left that Lowlander's arm, and it was no one's fault but her own. She shouldn't have let herself hope, but hopes are like weeds: however often you root them out they keep on springing up. — Joe Abercrombie

Damn painted savage stabs himself on the floor of the Open Council, challengess us before the King, and nothing is done! Government by committee! Everyone pulling their own way! You can only react, never prepare! — Joe Abercrombie

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

Fearlessness is a fool's boast, to my mind. The only men with no fear in them are dead, or the soon to be dead, maybe. Fear teaches you caution, and respect for your enemy, and to avoid sharp edges used in anger. All good things in their place, believe me. Fear can bring you out alive, and that's the very best anyone can hope for from any fight. Every man who's worth a damn feels fear. It's the use you make of it that counts. — Joe Abercrombie

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

In the valleys where I was born they say it is God's sword, dropped from the heavens.'
'Don't you?' asked Flood.
Whirrun rubbed some dirt from the crosspiece with his thumb. 'I used too.'
'Now?'
'God makes things, no? God is a farmer. A craftsman. A midwife. God gives things life.' He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. 'What would God want with a sword? — Joe Abercrombie

It was either bluster or look weak and Thorn reckoned that no choice at all, so she puffed herself up and snapped out, "How did you get the scar?"
"How did you get the scar?"
Thorn frowned. "What scar?"
"That's the face the gods gave you?" And with the faintest of smiles the Vansterman went back to coiling rope. — Joe Abercrombie

He was less and less sure with every day that being a better man was worth all the effort. — Joe Abercrombie

To draw from the world below is fraught with peril. The Magus — Joe Abercrombie

These boots are worth more than you, damn it!'
Shadikshirram was sitting on her bed, eyes shining wet, straining forward and trying to grab her foot but so drunk she kept missing. When she saw him she sagged back.
'Give me a hand, eh?'
'As long as you don't need two,' said Yarvi.
She gurgled with laughter. 'You're a clever little crippled bastard, aren't you? I swear the gods sent you. Sent you ... to get my boots off. — Joe Abercrombie

I will ask you once to put the dark-skinned girl down and leave."
Crandle snorted. "And if we don't?"
That one eye narrowed slightly. "Then, long after we are gone to the goddess, the grandchildren of the grandchildren of those who witness will whisper fearful stories of the way I broke you. — Joe Abercrombie

Then, once he had eaten, he would ask the spirits for guidance. Their guidance was pretty useless, but the company would be welcome. — Joe Abercrombie

The best lessons one teaches oneself. — Joe Abercrombie

Bravery is the dead man's virtue. — Joe Abercrombie

You want to be merciful. To stand in the light. I understand it. I admire it. But, my queen ... Only the victors can be merciful. — Joe Abercrombie

'The Blade Itself' was my first book. Probably I should've tried a few short stories first, but for some reason I decided to begin with Everest. — Joe Abercrombie

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

She tipped back her head and swilled down the last of her wine. 'Having fucked the groom is really no excuse for missing a wedding, you know. — Joe Abercrombie

A lot of wasted time, to the Dogman's mind, but once you've been fool enough to ask for a task, you better do the one you're given.n — Joe Abercrombie

A man so slimy he would have found employment as axle grease. — 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

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

Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. — Joe Abercrombie

The clever words leaked out of his mind and he spoke without thinking, looking her straight in the eye. Maybe this was what honesty felt like. — 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

Strange how, as long as the hardship lasts, we can stand it. As soon as the crisis is over, the strength all leeches away in an instant. — Joe Abercrombie

Savor the little moments, son, that's my advice. They're what life is. All the little things that happen while you're waiting for something else. — Joe Abercrombie

Dogman and Dow, Tul and Grim, West and Pike. Six of them, stood in a circle and looking down at two piles of cold earth. Below in the valley, the Union were busy burying their own dead, Dogman had seen it. Hundreds of 'em, in pits for a dozen each. It was a bad day for men, all in all, and a good one for the ground. Always the way, after a battle. Only the ground wins. Shivers — Joe Abercrombie

He's really dead?"
Benna blew out his cheeks. "Well, his head's off, and spiked above the gates, so unless you know one hell of a physician ... — Joe Abercrombie

Could you just ask? I know we used to hate each other but I've come to think I might like you quite a lot. Any chance you like me, at all? Gods, it sounded absurd. All her life she'd been pushing folk away, she had no idea where to start at pulling one in. What if he looked at her as if she was mad? The thought yawned like a pit at her feet. What do you mean, like? Like, like like? Should she just take hold of him and kiss him? She kept thinking about it. She hardly thought about anything else any more. — Joe Abercrombie

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

Still, it was better to swear an oath and never follow through than not even to bother with the oath. Wasn't it? — Joe Abercrombie

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

Friends are people one pretends to like in order to make life bearable. — Joe Abercrombie

I've been trying to get through this damn book again". Ardee slapped at heavy volume lying open, face down, on a chair.
"The Fall of the Master Maker", muttered Glokta. "That rubbish? All magic and valor, no ? I couldn't get through the first one".
"I sympathize. I'm onto the third and it doesn't get any easier. Too many damn wizards. I get them mixed up one with another. It's all battles and endless bloody journeys, here to there and back again. If so much as glimpse another map I swear I kill myself — 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

And then Ardee herself was so much more complicated in person than she had been as a silent memory. Nine parts witty, clever, fearless, attractive. One part a mean and destructive drunk. Every moment with her was a lottery, but perhaps it was that sense of danger that struck the sparks when they touched, made his skin tingle and his mouth go dry . . . — Joe Abercrombie

It's a crime, when you think about how little time we get, that a man should ever be bored. When you are lying on your death bead, I expect you regret those weeks wasted more than your worst mistakes. — Joe Abercrombie

Her knee caught him between the legs with pitiless accuracy, driving the wind from his chest, making him teeter for a breathless moment, then bringing him down like a sledgehammer to a house of cards. As he slid groaning to the carpet in that special, shooting agony that only a blow to the fruits can produce, it was little consolation that he had been right.
His Queen was quite evidently a woman of rare and fiery passion. — Joe Abercrombie

Why do big men tend to have such little brains? Perhaps they get by on brawn too often, and their minds dry up like plums in the sun. — Joe Abercrombie

Perhaps he should have fallen to his knees and given thanks to the gods for their unlikely victory but the red harvest sword-hacked and arrow-stuck about the ruin did not look like a thing to give thanks for. — Joe Abercrombie

Of all things, men most love to watch ohers face Death. It reminds them they yet live. — 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

He would have liked to weigh his choices, but for that you need more than one. — Joe Abercrombie

For a man reckoned clever, he got wedged in a lot of stupid corners. — Joe Abercrombie

And he realized then that he had not lost all those times in the training square because he lacked the skill, or the strength, or even a hand. He had lacked the will. And somewhere on the South Wind, somewhere in the trackless ice, somewhere in this ancient ruin, he had found it. — Joe Abercrombie

Pick your enemies more carefully then your friends, they will be with you longer. — Joe Abercrombie

The memories of our glories fade, and rot away into half-arsed anecdotes, thin and unconvincing as some other bastard's lies. The failures, the disappointments, the regrets, they stay raw as the moments they happened. — Joe Abercrombie

Enemies are the price of success. — Joe Abercrombie

Give Bethod a kick from me, once you have him under your boot."
"That I will, unless he gets me under his."
"Never easy, kicking upwards. — 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

Every war carries within it the seeds of the next. — Joe Abercrombie

Yarvi soon learned only to sip the results, since unwrapping to piss in that cold was an act of heroism that earned grunted congratulations from the others, all the more heartfelt since everyone knew sooner or later they would have to present their own nethers to the searing wind. — Joe Abercrombie

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

...Chief without soldiers is just a very lonely man in a big bloody field — Joe Abercrombie

Killing a man by accident had made her a villain. Killing another on purpose had made her a hero. But all she could do was frown at the body as they dragged it out, and feel there was something very odd in all this. — Joe Abercrombie

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? — Joe Abercrombie

Modesty's for folk with nothing to boast of. — Joe Abercrombie

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. — Joe Abercrombie

But I guess you learn to stop hoping, after a while. Life teaches you to expect the worst, eh? — Joe Abercrombie

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

I'm trying to put things in the best light, but a turd's a turd, whatever light it's in! — Joe Abercrombie

I don't trust a man who drinks,' he growled, not bothered about dressing it up. 'A man takes to drinking, then he gets weak, then his mind goes.' Cosca sadly shook his head. 'You have it back to front. A man's mind goes, then he gets weak, then he takes to drink. The bottle is the symptom, not the cause. — Joe Abercrombie

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. — 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

Welcome to my life of constant doubt, anxiety and occasional sudden and unpredictable horror, Javre. I hope you enjoy your fucking visit. — Joe Abercrombie

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. — Joe Abercrombie

What use is the love of commoners? The nobles have the money, the soldiers, the power.'
Bayaz rolled his eyes at the clouds. 'The words of a child, easily tricked by flim-flam and quick hands. Where does the nobles' money come from, but from taxes on the peasants in the fields? Who are their soldiers, but the sons and husbands of common folk? What gives the lords their power? Only the compliance of their vassals, nothing more. When the peasantry become truly dissatisfied, that power can vanish with terrifying speed. — Joe Abercrombie

There aren't many good things don't have a splinter of selfishness in them somewhere, after all. — Joe Abercrombie

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

And Bethod means to make war on this? He must be mad."
"Bethod, for all his waste and pride, understands the Union. They are jealous of one another, all those people. 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. Behind those walls they shout and argue and endlessly bite one another's backs. Old squabbles are never settled, but thrive, and put down roots, and the roots grow deeper with the passing years. It has always been so. They are not like you, Logen. A man here can smile, and fawn, and call you friend, give you gifts with one hand and stab you with the other. You will find this a strange place. — Joe Abercrombie

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. — Joe Abercrombie

A King must win. The rest is dust. — 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

Gratitude and resentment are brothers eternal, after all. — Joe Abercrombie