Joe Abercrombie Quotes

Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

— Joe Abercrombie

“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.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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.

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

“You don't have to be ready. You just have to go.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“They've strengthened the walls since last year. I wouldn't fancy trying to storm the place."
"Don't pretend you'd have the guts to storm the place"
"I wouldn't fancy telling someone else to storm the place"
"Don't pretend you'd have the guts to give the orders"
"I wouldn't fancy watching you tell someone else to storm the place."
"No.”

— 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

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

“The faster you run from the past, the faster it catches you. All you can do is turn to face it. Embrace it. Try and meet the future wiser for it.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Pain is the best schoolmaster, as you will soon discover.”

— 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

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

— Joe Abercrombie

A minister stands for Father Peace, but a good one is no stranger to Mother War.

— Joe Abercrombie

“Heresy and progress often look much alike.”

— Joe Abercrombie

Time hasn't been kind."
"Time never is. A fighter keeps fighting even so. Thought you were a fighter?

— Joe Abercrombie

The gods hate those who plan badly, and help those with good friends, good swords, and good sense.

— Joe Abercrombie

“Your death comes.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Plans have a way of coming apart when you lean om 'em”

— Joe Abercrombie

Power is a bloody mirage. The closer you seem to get the further away it is

— Joe Abercrombie

“There's no need to rush, Arch Lector. That's the trouble with good legs, you tend to run around too much. If you have trouble moving, on the other hand, you don't move until you damn well know it's time.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Conscience can be painful but so can the cock-rot. A grown-up should suffer his afflictions privately and not allow them to become an inconvenience for friends and colleagues.' - The Magnificent Nicomo Cosca”

— 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

Strange, how quickly a king could become an animal. Or half a king half an animal. Perhaps even those we raise highest never get that far above the mud.

— Joe Abercrombie

If you change your mind about the knife,' Grom called after him, smiling all the while, 'you can seek me out.'
[ ... ]
'Last time we met ... you offered me a knife' Yarvi fixed Grom with his eye. On his knees, ragged and bloodied, but fixed him still. 'You told me to seek you out if I changed my mind. Will you give it to me now?

— 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

“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

“Comes to be everything reminds you of something past. Somewhere past. Someone. Yourself, maybe, how you were. The now gets fainter and the past more and more real. The future worn down to but a stub.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Well don't just hit 'em, you lazy bastards!" he shouted in a broken voice. "Pull 'em!”

— Joe Abercrombie

“I don't do sober any more. Sober hurts.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“A few old shits and some fucking woman," he snarled. "We're backing down to the likes o' these without a fight?" "No, no." Hardbread slung his own scarred shield onto his back. "I'm backing down, and these fellows here. You're going to stay, and fight Whirrun of Bligh on your own." "I'm what?" Redcrow frowned at Whirrun, twitchy, and Whirrun looked back, what showed of his face still stony as the Heroes themselves. "That's right," said Hardbread, "since you're itching for a brawl. Then I'm going to cart your hacked-up corpse back to your mummy and tell her not to worry 'cause this is the way you wanted it. You loved this fucking hill so much you just had to die here.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Worry less about what the gods might do and more about what you can,”

— 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

“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

“There is no fruit so sweet as the one you cannot taste, eh, my young friend? Eh? Eh?" He waggled his eyebrows in what Jezal felt was a most unsavoury fashion. "I”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Great events, but it all seemed of small importance compared to what happened now, in this room. Who knew? The course of his life might turn on the next few moments if he could find the right words, and make himself say them.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Could the motive be nothing more than simple self-preservation? When you lose the instinct yourself, it's hard to remember how powerful it is for everyone else. He felt himself starting to smile.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“She hated walls. For her, they had always been the jaws of a trap.
Ferro frowned at the bed. She hated beds, and couches, and cushions. Soft things make you soft, and she did not need them.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“You keep your wine in a paper bag, you shouldn't be too upset when it leaks.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Nothing was easy with people, but she could always count on herself to make things more difficult than they had to be.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Some sheep were bleating away beside the track, pressed tight into a pen much too small. Foraged, no doubt, meaning stolen, some unlucky shepherd's livelihood vanished down the gullets and out the arses of Black Dow's army. Behind a screen of hides, not two strides from the flock, a woman was slaughtering 'em and three more doing the skinning and gutting and hanging the carcasses, all soaked to the armpits in blood and not caring much about it either. Two lads, probably just reached fighting age, were watching. Laughing at how stupid the sheep were, not to guess what was happening behind those hides. They didn't see that they were in the pen, and behind a screen of songs and stories and young men's dreams, war was waiting, soaked to the armpits and not caring.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. Selfishness belongs to children, and to halfwits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one's own troubles. In order to act like a king, one need only treat everyone else like one.”

— Joe Abercrombie

Do you want this bauble?' He drew is knife now and held it out to Yarvi by the bright blade.
Then take it. But know that Mother War breathed upon me in my crib, it has been foreseen that no man kill me.

— Joe Abercrombie

“He'd come to Styria looking for honest work. But when the purse runs empty, dishonest work has to do.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Whatever have you been feeding her?"
"Fire and whetstones," said Yarvi, smiling.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Every war carries within it the seeds of the next.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“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.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

“You don't pick your family, you take what you're given and you make the best of it.”

— Joe Abercrombie