Scott Lynch Quotes

#1. Belay this. We don't have to decide anything now. Just ... think on what I said. I didn't bring you in here for negotiations."
"What did you bring me here for?"
"Noise," she whispered, starting to pull his tunic off. "Lots and lots of noise.

Scott Lynch

#2. Crooked Warden," said Chains. "Just this morning I was suffering from the delusion that I was handing out the educations here.

Scott Lynch

#3. My disinterest in your bullshit is so tangible you could make bricks out of it

Scott Lynch

#4. It's an old Camorri tradition for when a bunch of people are planning something stupid," said Locke. "Actually, we have a lot of traditions for that. You'll find out

Scott Lynch

#5. They sat in companionable silence for a few moments after that, while the sun settled into its downward arc in the west and long shadows began to creep across the face of the city.

Scott Lynch

#6. I am through fucking around. Maybe this is going to complicate the hell out of things. So what? You're the complication I want more than anything else. You're my favorite complication. No matter what sort of holes you poke in my trust.

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#7. They kissed for the sort of endless moment that only exists between lovers whose lips are still new territory to one another.

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#8. I want to be a barking public embarrassment as soon as possible.

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#9. Well, if only I wasn't too much the gentleman to flay your spirit with a witty and cutting retort, madam, you'd be ... thoroughly ... um, wittily retorted at this very instant. - Locke Lamora

Scott Lynch

#10. Nah, if she's the rose, he can be her thorn." Calo snapped his fingers. "The Thorn of Camorr! Now, that's got some shine to it!"
"That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard," said Locke.

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#11. Damn it, when will you learn that refusing to admit you've lost isn't the same as winning?" "Sort of depends on how long one keeps refusing, doesn't it?

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#12. I can be very loud, when I'm being stupid.

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#13. Barsavi knew how to create expectations, Locke, and how to use those expectations to mislead those who would harm him.

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#14. You're a lever and a fulcrum, you two, looking for a city to turn upside down.

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#15. Once a Big Lie was let out in the world, it seemed to grow on its own and needed little tending or worry to bend to the situation.

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#16. When the sky's falling, I take shelter under bullshit.

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#17. We go now," said Locke, "or I leave you here to die. Understanding is a luxury; you don't get to have it. Sorry.

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#18. Congratulations! We're reverse burglars, here to give you fifty gold solari!

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#19. Hope is what we all build lives for ourselves upon, is it not?

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#20. Locke moaned.
'Quit sobbing, you damn baby,' Jean hissed as he began to lope back along the dock. 'You must have at least a half beer glass of blood left somewhere in there.'
But Locke was now well and truly unconscious ...

Scott Lynch

#21. The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control.

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#22. Well, hell. It's been five years. Maybe she's learned to lose gracefully. Maybe she's out of practice." "Maybe trained monkeys will climb out of my ass and pour me a glass of Austershalin brandy," said Jean.

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#23. You can knock down kingdoms on a whim. What you need is someone to make sure you don't get hit by a carriage when you cross the street.

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#24. You are! There ain't no Thirteenth! Ain't naught but the Twelve, that's truth! Yeah, I been to Verrar a couple times, met up with lads and lasses

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#25. The world had a fragile liquid quality, running at the edges and spinning on previously unrevealed axes.

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#26. I mean, it's not calling me 'Locke.' It knows my real name.

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#27. Go forth now and live, Locke Lamora. Live, uncertain.

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#28. Bearded peasant goes in one end of an alley, clean-shaven gentleman comes out the other? Really?" "It's a classic!

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#29. I sometimes think that 'friend' is just a word I use for all the people I haven't murdered yet.

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#30. Son of a bitch," said Locke, "but I am displeased. It all comes down to clothes. Clothes, clothes, clothes. What a ridiculous thing to be restrained by.

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#31. In the glass burrow beneath their feet, the flames began to rise. First the flames, and then the screams

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#32. I think I can stand up, though!" He demonstrated the questionable optimism of this pronouncement by falling on his face.

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#33. Privileges of age, size, and ass-kissing. If you survive this conversation, you'll find that it's just the same in most of the big gangs.

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#34. But you didn't die."
"Clever lad, to deduce that from such slender evidence after living with me for just three years.

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#35. Hardships are arbitrary, Locke. You never know which particular quality in yourself or a fellow is going to get you past them.

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#36. I think it's fairly common for writers to be afflicted with two simultaneous yet contradictory delusions, the burning certainty that we're unique geniuses, and the constant fear that we're witless frauds who are speeding toward epic failure.

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#37. Cold walls do not a prison make, nor iron bands a bondsman.

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#38. Chains used to claim that there's no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated," said Locke.

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#39. Nervy little Shades' Hill purse-clutcher, thinking you can keep me in the dark. What plan?"
"The plan to steal a corpse."
"Ahem. Anything else you'd like to tell me about it?"
"It's brilliant.

Scott Lynch

#40. He said that life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone's got a place in the queue, you can't get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that the line is actually circular.

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#41. This man is my boatswain.

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#42. I'm not as reckless as I used to be. You know, when I was little.

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#43. Land has its pirates, same as the sea,

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#44. There's no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.

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#45. You've got that motherly concern in your eyes, Jean. I must look like I'm hammered as shit," said Locke.
"Actually you look like you were executed last week.

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#46. Maybe the one real advantage to getting older is that you have the time to pull your head a little bit farther out of your ass.

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#47. I don't want to spend the rest of the day interrupting your questions, so I'm going to temporarily forget how to make words come out of my mouth.

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#48. Those prancing little pants-wetters come here to learn the colorful and gentlemanly art of fencing, with its many sporting limitations and its proscriptions against dishonorable engagements. You on the other hand, you are going to learn how to kill men with a sword.

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#49. This is where you and I are headed ... Look for us in history books and you'll find us in the margins. Look for us in legends and you might just find us celebrated

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#50. So, uh, just to be clear," said Calo, "none of us are going to be fighting Jean?" "Not unless you're inconceivably stupid.

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#51. The world is cruel enough without our compounding it;

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#52. Ha! Yes. When anyone tells you habits die hard, Locke, they're lying - it seems they never die at all.

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#53. Time's a river, Locke, and we've always drifted farther down it than we think.

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#54. I have only two wishes," said Jean. "The first is for strong coffee, and the second is for stronger coffee.

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#55. He lay there shaking in the light of the red lamps, in a silent hall, alone with his triumph, unable to move and bleeding to death.

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#56. As Chains had once said, feeling like you wanted desperately to die was fine evidence that you had yet to do so.

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#57. You know who waxes philosophical about the tiniest weaknesses of enemies? The powerless.

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#58. When you can't cheat the game, you'd best find a means to cheat the players.

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#59. You're one third bad intentions, one third pure avarice, and one eighth sawdust. What's left, I'll credit, must be brains.

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#60. You're the complication I want more than anything else. You're my favorite complication. No

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#61. If he had a bloody gash across his throat and a physiker was trying to sew it up, Lamora would steal the needle and thread and die laughing.

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#62. What good's slacking all the time if the ship comes apart beneath you while you sleep?

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#63. I thought you specialised in dishonest finesse?"
"I also do a brisk trade in putting knives to peoples' throats and shouting at them," said Locke.

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#64. Any man can fart in a closed room and say that he commands the wind

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#65. Just as you and I speak by forming words, the natural, private discourse of the Sanza twins appears to consist entirely of farts and savage beatings. What

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#66. If you're going to live here, staying civil is as much a duty as sitting the steps or washing dishes. Now, while I bask in the glow of another moral sermon delivered with the precision of a master fencer, hold your applause and let's get back to last night.

Scott Lynch

#67. Such audacity could never be faked - Locke had to feel it, summon it from somewhere inside, cloak himself in arrogance as though it were an old familiar garment. Locke Lamora became a shadow in his own mind... Locke's complicated lies were this new man's simple truth.

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#68. Yeah, but if I don't start my nervous pacing now, I'll never have it all done in time.

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#69. Only one way to win when you're being chased by someone bigger and tougher than you. Turn straight around, punch their teeth out, and hope the gods are fond of you.

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#70. Let us speak behind our hands, lest our lips be read as the book of our designs, and let us find some place where only gods and rats may hear our words aloud.

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#71. There was no point in stealing well or wisely if the loot couldn't be stashed somewhere safe.

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#72. The best disguises were those that were poured out of the heart rather than painted on the face.

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#73. Until you finally lose the strength for sarcasm, Locke, I wouldn't hire any mourners.

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#74. At the sight of a Sanza brother offering cards, every guard in the room took a step back; some of them visibly struggled with the idea of raising their crossbows again.

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#75. Lies go out, but the truth stays home.

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#76. To live the life the gods have given you, you must clutch wisely, then run. Run like the houds of hell on a sinner's scent!

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#77. Can't fear the fire if you don't scald your fingertips.

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#78. There's no talking sense to sentiment,

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#79. Heavens," said Galdo in a deep, dramatic voice, "only one man living could have squeezed forth such a gleaming brown jewel
this is the work of Squatting Calo, the Midnight Shitter!

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#80. Locke threw himself at Father Chains, and the man, without hesitation, scooped him up and held him, patting his back until his racking sobs quieted down.

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#81. We like what we like, we want what we want, and nobody needs to give us permission to feel that way!

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#82. Chains reached over and grabbed Locke's fist, then mimed swinging it into Calo's jaw. "Repeat as necessary," said Chains, "until your problems are spitting up teeth.

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#83. Her eyes [were] like the sudden plunge to blue depths beyond a continental shelf.

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#84. Live snakes?' said one of the scribes. 'You mean-'
'Yeah,' said Locke. 'They've got scales, they slither around - snakes. Keep up.

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#85. How would you be able to detect a fart over your natural odor, Sanza?" "For shame," said Galdo. "There's no Sanzas here, remember? I'm an Asino." "Oh yes," said Locke with a yawn. "Yes, you certainly are.

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#86. Their cold blue light shone through the silver curtains of river mist as streetlamps might glimmer through a smoke-grimed window

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#87. Are you smarter than a pig, Locke?"
"On occasion," said Locke. "There are contrary opinions.

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#88. The next person who tells me something like, "Squiggle-fuck the rightwise cock-swatter with a starboard jib," is going to get a knife to the throat.

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#89. Like celestial bodies, transiting in their orbits, exerting their influences.

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#90. You have to be a dead-eyed dirty-souled maniac to want to spend your extended life trading punches with other maniacs. Once you've seized that power, there's no getting off the merry-go-round. You fight like hell just to hold on or you get shoved off.

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#91. You're ten pints of crazy in a one-pint glass.

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#92. Manners that would keep you starving are no manners worth respecting.

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#93. I assure you that in all matters of discretion not involving food, we make etiquette tutors look like slobbering barbarians.

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#94. You are beyond mad," said Locke after several moments of silent, furious thought. "Full-on barking madness is a state of rational bliss to which you may not aspire. Men living in gutters and drinking their own piss would shun your company. You are a prancing lunatic.

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#95. The sky was a fading red and nothing remained of the day save for a line of molten gold slowly lowering on the western horizon.

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#96. We're a different sort of thief here, Lamora. Deception and misdirection are our tools. We don't believe in hard work when a false face and a good line of bullshit can do so much more.

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#97. Worst of all, the inner vault is guarded by a live dragon, attended by fifty naked women armed with poisoned spears, each of them sworn to die in Requin's service. All redheads.
-You're just making that up, Jean.

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#98. Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don't need to justify it to anyone ... not even to ourselves.

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#99. Excellent,' said one of the Sanzas. "Soon he'll be fat, and we can butcher him like all the others for a Penance Day roast."
"What my brother means to say," said the other twin, "is that all the others died of purely natural causes, and you have nothing to fear from us. Now have some more bread.

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#100. I don't expect life to make sense," he said after a few moments, "but it could certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.

Scott Lynch