Joe Abercrombie Quotes

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

“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?”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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.

— Joe Abercrombie

“Never worry about what has been done. Only about what will be.”

— Joe Abercrombie

So we wait?" asked Severard.
"We wait, and we look to our defences. That and we try to find some money. Do you have any cash, Severard?"
"I did have some. I gave it to a girl, down in the slums."
"Ah. Shame."
"Not really, she fucks like a madman. I'd thoroughly recommend her, if you're interested."
Glokta winced as his knee clicked. "What a thoroughly heartwarming tale, Severard, I never had you down for a romantic. I'd sing a ballad if I wasn't so short of funds."
"I could ask around. How much are we talking about?"
"Oh, not much. Say, half a million marks?"
One of the Practical's eyebrows went up sharply. He reached into his pocket, dug around for a moment, pulled his hand out and opened it. A few copper coins shone in his palm.
"Twelve bits," he said. "Twelve bits is all I can raise.

— Joe Abercrombie

“It's not easy is it? Being a great man's son. You'd thought that would come with all kinds of advantages - with borrowed admiration, and respect. But it's only as easy as it is for the seeds of a great tree, trying to grow in its choking shadow. Not many make it to the sunlight for themselves.”

— Joe Abercrombie

You stick a bunch of drunken murderers together, ain't long before some turn to thieving, then to lying, then to bad language, and pretty soon to sobriety, raising families and making an honest living.

— Joe Abercrombie

“The world is full of monsters, after all. Perhaps the best one can hope for is to have the most terrible on your side.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— 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

“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

“Empathy? What's that?" Glokta winced as he rubbed at his aching leg. "It's a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Where do we find allies?"
Father Yarvi smiled. "Among our enemies, where else?”

— Joe Abercrombie

“I hope this is a lesson to you. Never take eggs from a metal-eyed man.”

— 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

“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

“Trust. It was a word that only liars used. A word the truthful had no need of.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“You want a thing when you can't have it. When you get it you suddenly sprout doubts. Then when you think you might lose it you find you need it worse than ever.”

— 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

“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

It can be a fearsome weapon, patience. One that few men ever learn to use.

— 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

“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

“For a man reckoned clever, he got wedged in a lot of stupid corners.”

— 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

“If you could kill a man by frowning at his back, the Breaker of Swords would have fallen bloody through the Last Door that day, but a frown is no blade, and Thorn's hatred cut no one but her.”

— Joe Abercrombie

Could he truly pretend that he wanted to be her friend? 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 had never got anywhere.

— Joe Abercrombie

“They say it's men with nothing to lose you should fear. But it's them who fear most.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Knowledge is so often the antidote to fear. But not here. Not now.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“People without hope are a dangerous crowd, even in a republic.”

— Joe Abercrombie

Mercy and cowardice are the same," she snapped out. "But you want their land, not their lives, no? Dead men can't obey.

— Joe Abercrombie

“He had learned long ago that life became much easier if you ignored what was not right before you.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“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.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“That's the problem with mistakes. You can make'em in an instant. Years upon years spent tiptoeing about like a fool, then you take your eye away for a moment and ... Bang.”

— 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

“Never doubt another's choices, I say. You can't know his reasons.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

“Unhappy times are the best for levity. You don't light candles in the middle of the day, do you?”

— 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'd have to be a bold man to bet your life on what I'd dare. How bold are you? -Sand dan Glokta

— Joe Abercrombie

I never saw men act with such ignorance, violence and self-serving malice as when energised by a just cause.

— 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

“Rare luck. Perhaps Shadikshirram couldn't convince the Banyas to follow us.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“There was the very slightest pause. Probably no more than a breath, for all it felt far longer. While everyone assessed the odds and the outcomes. While everyone judged just where the shifting power sat. While everything dropped into place in Dimbik's mind and, no doubt, the minds of every other person present. Just a breath, and everything was rearranged.”

— 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

“It was difficult to maintain any sense of superiority in the face of his utter dependence on other people.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Folk aren't just cowards or heroes. They're both and neither, depending on how things stand. Depending on who stands with them, who stands against. Depending on the life they've had. The death they see waiting. They”

— Joe Abercrombie