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.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“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.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“I just think TV is becoming more and more interesting in a way. Films are more and more derivative, you know, whether it's 'Transformers 2' or 'Shrek 5', or it's yet another iteration of another kind of clone of something else. It's a bit depressing in a way.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“I span the entire geek spectrum.”

— Joe Abercrombie

I got into reading a lot of noir and a lot of thrillers as well, and I really admired the plotting about those and the way that they can surprise you. And obviously to surprise people and to have twists in the tale, you have to plan quite carefully.

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

“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.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

Those with bad luck should at least attempt to balance it with good sense.

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

“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.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Ain't it God's sword, fell from the sky? I thought it had to be passed on. Is it cursed?"
Craw took up the reins and turned back to the north. "Every sword's a curse, boy.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“There's no disappointment like getting what you've always wanted ...”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Why the mad hair, girl?"
"Because damn you," growled Thorn, "that's why.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“There can be a greater power in words than in all the steel within the Circle of the World.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“It can be a terrible curse for a man to get everything he ever dreamed of. If the shining prizes turn out somehow to be empty baubles, he is left without even his dreams for comfort.”

— Joe Abercrombie

Doing better next time. That's what life is.

— Joe Abercrombie

“When he'd made it thirty strides or so Logen turned around and looked back. The pot was sitting forlorn by the lake, already filling up with rainwater. They'd been through a lot together, him and that pot. "Fare you well, old friend." The pot did not reply.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“One body might just be a coincidence. Two make a conspiracy.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“I got bigger problems than that life hasn't turned out the way you hoped. You can harp on the past all you please, Dow, like some old woman upset cause her tits used to stay up by themselves, or you can shut your fucking hole and help me get on with things.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“He tried to tell himself the dead are dead, but he knew Jenner had been right. Their ghosts stick in the minds of those that knew them, loved them, hated them. Those that killed them most of all.”

— Joe Abercrombie

All too often when we topple something hateful, rather than breaking it and starting afresh, we raise ourselves up in its place.

— Joe Abercrombie

“A man who gives all his thought to doing good, but no thought to the consequences  ... " Father Yarvi lifted his withered hand and pressed its one crooked finger into Brand's chest. "That is a dangerous man.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“He's living in a dream! Pandered to, and coddled, and utterly spoiled his whole life! That boy and the real world are entire strangers to one another!”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Fine lies beat tedious truths every time.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Give Yarvi the knife since he has just one hand to hold it. One hand, perhaps, but the blood of kings in his veins!"
"It's keeping it there that worries me," said Yarvi under his breath.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Cleverness is no guarantee of sensible behaviour.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“There's no style of contempt like the stuff one kind of savage has for another,”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Monza never had understood why getting out a tit or two made for a better painting. But painters seemed to think it did, so tits is what you got.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“We don't get much time, and time feeling sorry for yourself is time wasted.”

— 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

“He shook his head as he peered down at the corpses. "Some courage, to come at us like this, over and over, against defences so strong and so well manned. I've rarely seen men so willing to give their lives." "They have that most strange and dangerous of qualities," said Cosca. "They think they're in the right.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Oh well," sighed Glokta. "A man has to have hope doesn't he?"
"Of course sir," muttered the servant, heading for the door.
Does he?”

— Joe Abercrombie

“I don't see what I want to see, I see what I need to see. If you don't like it, see something else”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they've brought a lot of sharpened metal with them”

— Joe Abercrombie

I'd hate to be lost. But prepare yourself for the possibility of disappointment. Life is full of them. And the manner of its endings is often the greatest one of all.

— Joe Abercrombie

“Well, that's the end of that, I reckon. You know what, Furious?" And he grinned sideways at West. "I'm getting to like you, boy.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“The more you give a man, the more he demands, and the less happy he becomes. No one ever appreciates what he gets for nothing.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Within reach of his hand, the Bloody-Nine was master. The”

— Joe Abercrombie

“We are leaders. War is what happens when we fail. Or are pushed into failure by the rash and the foolish. Victory is better than defeat, but ... not by much.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“The best lessons one teaches oneself.”

— 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

“Logen ambled over to him. If you're going to travel with a man, and maybe fight alongside him, it's best to talk, and laugh if you can. That way you can get an understanding, and then a trust. Trust is what binds a band together, and out there in the wilds that can make the difference between living or dying. Building that kind of trust takes time, and effort. Logen reckoned it was best to get started early, and today he had good humour to spare, so he stood next to Luthar and looked out at the park, trying to dream up some common ground in which to plant the seeds of an unlikely friendship.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“One need not love one's enemy, or even fear him, to desire peace. One need only love oneself.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“He still didn't have half an idea how to behave around her. There was a hell of a gap between them in the daylight, a yawning great gap of race, and age, and language that he wasn't sure could ever be bridged. Strange, how the gap dwindled down to nothing at night. They understood each other well enough in the dark. Maybe they'd work it out, in time, or maybe they wouldn't, and that'd be that. Still, he was glad she was there. Made him feel like a proper human man again, instead of just an animal slinking in the woods, trying to scratch his way from one mess to another.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Still alive, he muttered to himself.”

— Joe Abercrombie

“Fools boast of what they will do. Heroes do it.”

— Joe Abercrombie