Top 500 Joe Abercrombie Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “You can’t become attached to things, not out here in the wild.”

— Joe Abercrombie

302. “And he realized then that he had not lost all those times in the training square because he lacked the skill, or the strength, or even a hand. He had lacked the will. And somewhere on the South Wind, somewhere in the trackless ice, somewhere in this ancient ruin, he had found it.”

— Joe Abercrombie

303. “Laughing with a man was a good step forward. First comes the laughter, then the respect, then the trust.”

— Joe Abercrombie

304. “That’s what an idiot does when he gets angry. He destroys whatever’s nearest, even if it’s his own house!”

— Joe Abercrombie

305. “I have a plan,” said Nothing. “Does it involve a sword?” asked Jaud. A pause. “All my plans do.” “Do you have a sword?” Another. “No.” “How will your plan work without one?” muttered Sumael. A third. “Death waits for us all.”

— Joe Abercrombie

306. “Madmen and fools feel no fear. Heroes fear and face the danger anyway.”

— Joe Abercrombie

307. “Aliz sighed. “War is terrible, isn’t it?” “It blights the landscape, throttles commerce and industry, kills the innocent and rewards the guilty, thrusts honest men into poverty and lines the pockets of profiteers, and in the end produces nothing but corpses, monuments and tall tales.”

— Joe Abercrombie

308. “Enough to make a man believe in God,’ said Temple. ‘And that He’s somewhere else.”

— Joe Abercrombie

309. “What is love anyway, but finding someone who suits you? Someone who makes up for your shortcomings? Someone you can work with. Work on.”

— Joe Abercrombie

310. “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

311. “They passed lands that had no name, where fens of mirror pools stretched into unknown distances, thousands of fragments of sky sprinkled across this bastard offspring of earth and sea, lonely birds calling out over the desolation, and Yarvi breathed deep the salt chill and longed for home.”

— Joe Abercrombie

312. “A length of wood does not by itself make a man wise, or noble, or powerful, any more than a length of steel does. Power comes from the flesh, my boy, and from the heart, and from the head. From the head most of all.”

— Joe Abercrombie

313. “All things considered, and well against the run of luck, he reckoned he’d come out alright. Might be he’d lost an eye down here in Styria. Might be he was leaving no richer than when he’d stepped off the boat. But he was a better man, of that he’d no doubt. A wiser man. Used to be he was his own worst enemy. Now he was everyone else’s.”

— Joe Abercrombie

314. “Freedom did not seem to have made anyone any less angry.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

316. “What better foundation for an alliance than mutual hatred and suspicion?”

— Joe Abercrombie

317. “The people far prefer a leader who appears great, to one who is.”

— Joe Abercrombie

318. “He had discovered early in his military career that if one has an effective and experienced officer above, coupled with effective and experienced soldiers below, one need do, and know, nothing.”

— Joe Abercrombie

319. “Crowds rarely cheer too loudly for the defeated, no matter how hard they fought, how great their sacrifices, how long the odds. Maidens might wet themselves over cheap and worthless victories, but they don’t so much as blush for ‘I did my best.”

— Joe Abercrombie

320. “A cynic might observe that the scriptures can be used to support both sides of every argument.”

— Joe Abercrombie

321. “He was one of those men loves to be despised. That treats loathing like gold, to be clawed for and hoarded up. He hadn’t learned yet that hate’s the one thing never runs out.”

— Joe Abercrombie

322. “Never took an easy path if he thought it was the wrong one. Never stepped back from a fight if he thought it had to be done.”

— Joe Abercrombie

323. “The Forest that had been about her all her life, certain as a mountain, was made ashes. The high gable that had stood for two hundred years fallen in ruin. Throvenland was torn apart like smoke on the wind. Nowhere would be safe, ever again.”

— Joe Abercrombie

324. “Are you drunk?’ ‘It’s the afternoon, isn’t it? I try always to be drunk by now. Once you start a job you should give it your best.”

— Joe Abercrombie

325. “Amazing the rubbish idiots will believe if you shout it loudly enough.”

— Joe Abercrombie

326. “My suspicions grow with every passing moment. They are never laid to rest. They only change shape.”

— Joe Abercrombie

327. “She was not a woman to be deterred by hatred: not from her workers, not from her rivals, not from the men she bullied, bribed or blackmailed to get her way. It is when they truly hate you, after all, that you know you have won. So she met the seething dislike with effortless superiority, paraded past with her shoulders back and chin high. If she was to be cast as the villain, so be it. They were always the most interesting characters anyway.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

329. “Heresy and progress often look much alike.”

— Joe Abercrombie

330. “He wondered for an idle moment if he’d ever see her again, but it didn’t look likely. You have to be realistic, after all, and getting through tomorrow seemed like quite the ambition.”

— Joe Abercrombie

331. “There is always a way.”

— Joe Abercrombie

332. “The truth is overrated.” Vick let the purse drop into his hand. “An actor should know that.”

— Joe Abercrombie

333. “You want to be merciful. To stand in the light. I understand it. I admire it. But, my queen... Only the victors can be merciful.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

335. “Sometimes Wile wondered whether a cause could be right that needed folk burned, cut and otherwise mutilated.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

337. “Enemies are the price of success.”

— Joe Abercrombie

338. “Strange, to lock men up for thieving when the whole army lived on robbery. To dangle men for murder when they were all at the business of killing. What makes a crime in a time when men take what they please from who they please?”

— Joe Abercrombie

339. “The sad truth is that pretty people can slide through all kinds of scrapes that’d end very badly for the ugly.”

— Joe Abercrombie

340. “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

341. “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

342. “Aye, but do they really kneel to him, or to the elf-weapons his guards carry?” “What matters is that they kneel.” “Are fear and respect really the same?” “Of course not,” said Yarvi, walking on and leaving more of his many guards to clear away the crowd. “Respect soon blows away in a storm. Fear has far deeper roots.” Teams of.”

— Joe Abercrombie

343. “Monza raised her brows. A strange group she’d gathered, surely, but when you have a half-mad plan you need men at least half-mad to see it through. Sane ones might be tempted to look for a better idea.”

— Joe Abercrombie

344. “The least a leader can do is to share the burdens of his people. I have little other comfort to give them.”

— Joe Abercrombie

345. “If you can’t make your enemies trust you, you can at least make them mistrust each other.”

— Joe Abercrombie

346. “Isern squelched up the bank with Rikke’s dripping trousers. ‘Clean as new snow! Your only stench now shall be of youth and disappointment.”

— Joe Abercrombie

347. “It’s an easy thing to make a man a carcass. He knew a thousand ways to do it. But once you’ve done it, there’s no going back. One minute he’s a man, all full up with hopes, and thoughts, and dreams. A man with friends, and family, and a place where he’s from. Next minute he’s mud.”

— Joe Abercrombie

348. “Seemed that Logen’s father had been right. You can never have too many knives.”

— Joe Abercrombie

349. “Brand stared in sick disbelief. He’d been sure among all those lads someone would speak, for they were honest enough. Or Hunnan would tell his part in it, for he was a respected master-at-arms. The king or the queen would draw out the truth, for they were wise and righteous. The gods wouldn’t allow such an injustice to pass. Someone would do something. Maybe, like him, they were all waiting for someone else to put things right.”

— Joe Abercrombie

350. “Perhaps we look at others and see only the things we don’t have.”

— Joe Abercrombie