Top 100 Joe Abercrombie Quotes
#1. A few words can be more effective than a lot of blades, even in such times as these.
Joe Abercrombie
#2. The ground must be a general's best friend, or it becomes his worst enemy.
Joe Abercrombie
#3. It always amazes me, how swiftly problems can be solved, once you start cutting things off people.
Joe Abercrombie
#4. That's the trouble with running. Wherever you run to, that's where you are.
Joe Abercrombie
#5. 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
#6. Strange, that however tough one's skin becomes in later life, the wounds of youth never close. Shenkt
Joe Abercrombie
#7. Mason had just pulled his own knife out, a monster of a thing you could've called a sword without much fear of correction.
Joe Abercrombie
#8. 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
#9. But it is easy to speak of the past, impossible to go there. I am powerful in ways you can only dream, yet I am still a prisoner of what I have done. I can never escape the cell I have made for myself. Things are what they are.
Joe Abercrombie
#10. 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." "The
Joe Abercrombie
#11. 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
#12. Knowledge is so often the antidote to fear. But not here. Not now.
Joe Abercrombie
#13. In violent times folk like to kneel to violent men. In peaceful times they remember they're happier standing.
Joe Abercrombie
#15. This was a place of learning, and wonder, and great beauty.'
'Time has not been kind to the place.'
'Time is never kind.
Joe Abercrombie
#16. exceeded every expectation. It was built on a wide promontory that
Joe Abercrombie
#17. 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
#18. You may need two hands to fight someone, but only one to stab them in the back. (Yarvi)
Joe Abercrombie
#19. Any man can do what he likes. Right, Splitfoot?'
'Right, Chief.'
'Just as long as it's exactly what I fucking tell 'em to do.
Joe Abercrombie
#20. 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
#21. A good leader can't dwell on the choices he's made, Threetrees used to tell him, and a good leader can't help dwelling on 'em.
Joe Abercrombie
#22. Lies. The hardest kind to see through. The kind you tell yourself.
Joe Abercrombie
#23. Whatever have you been feeding her?"
"Fire and whetstones," said Yarvi, smiling.
Joe Abercrombie
#24. For a man reckoned clever, he got wedged in a lot of stupid corners.
Joe Abercrombie
#25. Facing an enemy on the battlefield took courage, but you had your friends beside you. Standing alone against your friends, that was a different kind of courage.
Joe Abercrombie
#26. By swap news do you mean drink?" "I do, and that excessively.
Joe Abercrombie
#28. No plague spreads quicker than panic, Stolicus wrote, nor is more deadly. The
Joe Abercrombie
#29. 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.
Joe Abercrombie
#30. My name is Nicomo Cosca, famed solider of fortune, and I am here for dinner.
Joe Abercrombie
#31. Are you entirely sure of that knot?' asked Morveer. 'There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop'.
'Twenty-eight strides', said Friendly.
'What?'
'The drop'.
A brief pause, 'That is not helpful'.
Joe Abercrombie
#32. 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
#33. What poet was it who wrote there's no pain worse than the pain of a broken heart? Sentimental shit. He should have spent more time in the Emporer's prisons.
Joe Abercrombie
#34. You are Shenkt? I expected more."
"Pray to whatever god you believe in that you never see more."
"I do not pray."
Shenkt leaned close, and whispered in his ear. "I advise you to start.
Joe Abercrombie
#35. I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.
Joe Abercrombie
#36. 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
#37. Fear has made them sloppy. The world teeters at a precipe. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man's efficiency.
Joe Abercrombie
#38. When you're down to small stakes, you have to play long odds.
Joe Abercrombie
#39. I've been on jobs like that before, everyone stuck on the money not the work, watching their backs every minute. Bad for your health and your business. We'll do this civilised, or not at all. What do you say?
"I say civilised," said Shenkt. "For pity's sake, let's kill like honest men.
Joe Abercrombie
#40. When do I rest, then?" "In the songs of great heroes, do you hear often of resting?
Joe Abercrombie
#41. 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
#42. He built the Empire, yet he was also the principal in its destruction. A great man, in so many ways, but great men have great faults ... One should learn the lessons of history. The mistakes of the past need only be made once ... Unless there are no other choices.
Joe Abercrombie
#43. A man without discipline is no better than a dog. A soldier without discipline is no better than a corpse. Worse, in fact. A corpse is no threat to his comrades.
Joe Abercrombie
#45. Probably been sure he'd got the right god, the right king, the right cause. Everyone finds a way to make their side the right one, after all.
Joe Abercrombie
#46. You should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.
Joe Abercrombie
#48. Straining and straining, getting nowhere, but unable to stop pushing in case the rock should fall and crush him. Meanwhile, arrogant bastards who were in just the same danger lazed on the slopes beside him saying, 'Well, it's not my rock.
Joe Abercrombie
#49. Sometimes it doesn't matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.
Joe Abercrombie
#50. A whore with a veil is mysterious. God's ways appear to be ... insane.
Joe Abercrombie
#51. Sometimes when I'm really enjoying a book, I'll read a sentence or paragraph and just think - how can someone's head be wired in such a way that they'd come up with that?
Joe Abercrombie
#52. I'm quite the humorist, for a woman who hires killers.
Joe Abercrombie
#53. A choice between killing and dying is no choice at all. You have to be realistic about these things. b
Joe Abercrombie
#54. 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
#56. I was too busy wallowing in pain and bitterness. Too busy being tragic.
Joe Abercrombie
#57. Trust is like glass. Lovely, but only a fool rests lots of weight on it.
Joe Abercrombie
#59. 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
#60. Just keep your mouth shut and smile. That's always good advice.' Jezal
Joe Abercrombie
#61. 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
#62. Strong leaders might like it when someone brings 'em a better idea. But weak ones never do.
Joe Abercrombie
#65. 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
#66. News spoils quick, friend, like milk.' 'I say it gets better if carefully kept, like wine.' 'I'm glad you like the vintage, but I ain't buying yesterday's news.
Joe Abercrombie
#68. So the fox killed his brother, the wolf. (Mother Scaer)
Joe Abercrombie
#70. 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
#71. It was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotion
Joe Abercrombie
#72. Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he's a lover.
Joe Abercrombie
#73. The wise wait for their moment, but never let it pass.
Joe Abercrombie
#74. The only difference between war and murder is the number of dead.
Joe Abercrombie
#75. 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
#76. The food of fear is ignorance, Mother Gundring used to say. The death of fear is knowledge. When you study a race of men you find they are just men like any others.
Joe Abercrombie
#77. Sand dan Glokta, shield to the helpless. Is it ever too late to be ... a good man?
Joe Abercrombie
#79. Madmen and fools feel no fear. Heroes fear and face the danger anyway.
Joe Abercrombie
#80. 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.
Joe Abercrombie
#81. 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
#82. That got him thinking about his life. It seemed a bitter, pointless sort of life now. No one was any better off because of it. Full of violence and pain, with not much but disappointment and hardship in between.
Joe Abercrombie
#83. He'd come to Styria looking for honest work. But when the purse runs empty, dishonest work has to do.
Joe Abercrombie
#84. Some things have to be done. It's better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.
Joe Abercrombie
#85. The Bloody-Nine opened his mouth, and shrieked out all of his bottomless love and his endless hate in one long wail.
Joe Abercrombie
#86. I apologise, your Highness. Murder can be a painful business.
Joe Abercrombie
#87. He was developing a sneaking feeling he had found his way onto the wrong side. Again. But it's not always easy to tell when you're picking. Perhaps, as Kahdia once told him, you are on the wrong side as soon as you pick one.
Joe Abercrombie
#88. 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
#89. The dead can forgive. The dead can be forgiven. The rest of us have better things to do. (Monza Murcatto)
Joe Abercrombie
#90. To fight my enemies I need friends behind me, and I'm clean out of friends. You have to be realistic. It's been a while since my ambitions went beyond getting through each day alive.
Joe Abercrombie
#91. I daresay that's a better-looking man there. A cleverer man.' He ran one hand through his short dark hair, frowning at his reflection. 'Not sure if I trust that bastard, though.
Joe Abercrombie
#92. The birth of spring is perhaps not the best time to cross a mountain range,' observed Longfoot under his breath. Bayaz looked sharply sideways. 'Some would say the best time to cross an obstacle is when one finds oneself on the wrong side of it! Or do you suggest we wait for summer?
Joe Abercrombie
#93. I'm a man." Koll's shoulders sagged. "When did that happen?" "It just happens." "I wish I knew what it meant, being a man." "Guess it means something different for each one of us. The gods know I'm no sage, but if I've realized anything, it's that life isn't about making something perfect.
Joe Abercrombie
#94. 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
#95. A man so slimy he would have found employment as axle grease.
Joe Abercrombie
#96. 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
#97. One body might just be a coincidence. Two make a conspiracy.
Joe Abercrombie
#98. They say a man lost in the desert must take such water as he is offered, no matter who it comes from. I
Joe Abercrombie
#99. Some men laugh easily. It makes them winning dinner companions.
Joe Abercrombie
#100. The world is all change, my friend. We all would like to go back, but the past is done. We must look forwards. We must change ourselves, however painful it may be, or be left behind.
Joe Abercrombie
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