Top 500 Joe Abercrombie Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 8 of 10

351. “Enemies are the price of success.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

353. “His ability was exceeded only by his belief in his own ability.”

— Joe Abercrombie

354. “Disbelieve this sword, it will still cut you. He is God. We all walk His path regardless.”

— Joe Abercrombie

355. “And, almost without realizing it, respect can develop. Liking. Even love.′ Laithlin’s voice seemed suddenly broken. “Almost... without realizing it.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

357. “Didn’t seem likely, but what’s the point of likely fantasies?”

— Joe Abercrombie

358. “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

359. “There is always a way.”

— Joe Abercrombie

360. “Somewhere in the shadows a clock vomited up a few sluggish chimes.”

— Joe Abercrombie

361. “But that’s the nice thing about looking backwards. You can pick out the bits that suit your story and toss the unhappy truths to the wind.”

— Joe Abercrombie

362. “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

363. “You keep your guard too low, I am afraid. You are full of passion, but passion without discipline is no more than a child’s tantrum.”

— Joe Abercrombie

364. “Watching a man’s entrails spilling out is excellent entertainment, but the sight of his cock, well, that would be obscene.”

— Joe Abercrombie

365. “She scarcely ever had a moment to herself, but she was grateful for that, too. When she was alone, the things she had seen and done the day of the uprising rushed into her mind, like filthy water into a holed boat, and dragged her down so quickly she felt she was drowning.”

— Joe Abercrombie

366. “Science is a system of rational thought devised to investigate the world and establish the laws by which it operates. The scientist uses those laws to achieve an effect. One which might easily appear magical in the eyes of the primitive.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

368. “You would’ve thought the more pain you suffered, the more you’d get used to it, but it was the other way around.”

— Joe Abercrombie

369. “All heroes’ news, like something from the songs, but there’s nothing like others’ successes to make your own failures sting the worse.”

— Joe Abercrombie

370. “Never thought o’ myself as a man who fills sacks with heads.” “No one sets off in that direction,” said Clover, puffing out his cheeks one more time. “But before you know it, there you bloody are.”

— Joe Abercrombie

371. “Strange, how quickly a king could become an animal. Or half a king half an animal. Perhaps even those we raise highest never get that far above the mud.”

— Joe Abercrombie

372. “That was the age of great men, doing what was right.”

— Joe Abercrombie

373. “Vengeance can feel fine, but it’s a luxury. It doesn’t fill your belly, or keep the rain off.”

— Joe Abercrombie

374. “Dimbik had once been told that the best soldiers are rarely courageous. That was when he had been sure it was the career for him. He started to slide one hand towards his sword, far from sure what he would do with it once it reached the hilt.”

— Joe Abercrombie

375. “Defeats do men far more good than victories.”

— Joe Abercrombie

376. “Temple grimaced, and twitched, and fidgeted with a frayed sleeve. ‘What can we do, though?’ ‘Only follow our consciences.’ Temple rounded on him angrily. ‘For a mercenary you talk a lot about conscience!’ ‘Why concern yourself unless yours bothers you?’ ‘As far as I can tell, you’re still taking Cosca’s money!’ ‘If I stopped, would you?’ Temple opened his mouth, then soundlessly shut it and scowled off at the horizon, picking at his sleeve, and picking, and picking.”

— Joe Abercrombie

377. “But that’s war for you. An ugly business that only leaves bad men better off. Why folk insisted on singing about great warriors all the time, Rikke couldn’t have said. Why not sing about really good fishermen, or bakers, or roofers, or some other folk who actually left the world a better place, rather than heaping up corpses and setting fire to things? Was that behaviour to encourage?”

— Joe Abercrombie

378. “Pain is the best schoolmaster, as you will soon discover.”

— Joe Abercrombie

379. “Some would say the best time to cross an obstacle is when one finds oneself on the wrong side of it!”

— Joe Abercrombie

380. “That’s what war does. Strips people and places of their identities and turns them into enemies in a line, positions to be taken, resources to be foraged. Anonymous things that can be carelessly crushed, and stolen, and burned without guilt.”

— Joe Abercrombie

381. “The ones you like straight away rarely turn out to be your favourites.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

384. “Nothing to it. You treat folk the way you’d want to be treated, and you can’t go far wrong.”

— Joe Abercrombie

385. “When one man knowingly kills another, they call it murder! When society causes the deaths of thousands, they shrug and call it a fact of life.”

— Joe Abercrombie

386. “She surely can cook a fight from the most peaceful ingredients. But nothing worth doing is easy. I love her in spite of it. I love her because of it. I love her.” And his face broke out in that grin again. “Every day’s a new adventure, that’s for sure.”

— Joe Abercrombie

387. “It’s a crime, when you think about how little time we get, that a man should ever be bored. When you are lying on your death bead, I expect you regret those weeks wasted more than your worst mistakes.”

— Joe Abercrombie

388. “The gods love to laugh at a happy man, however.”

— Joe Abercrombie

389. “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

390. “Worry less about what the gods might do and more about what you can, that’s my advice.”

— Joe Abercrombie

391. “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

392. “You have to be grateful for the small things, when any minute might be your last.”

— Joe Abercrombie

393. “I find reputations rarely fit people all that well. What are they, after all, but costumes we put on to disguise ourselves?”

— Joe Abercrombie

394. “Everyone likes me,” said Caul Shivers, the most feared man in the North.”

— Joe Abercrombie

395. “Remember, though, that you are the king’s observer, not the king’s champion.”

— Joe Abercrombie

396. “It is my sad observation that some men always want more.”

— Joe Abercrombie

397. “The definition of all right changes with the passing winters, I find. I’m about all right by the standards of the last few days. Twenty years ago I’d have considered this close to death.”

— Joe Abercrombie

398. “And here it is. That horrible, beautiful, stretched out moment between stubbing your toe and feeling the hurt. How long do I have before the pain comes? How bad will it be when it does?”

— Joe Abercrombie

399. “Well don’t just hit ‘em, you lazy bastards!” he shouted in a broken voice. “Pull ’em!”

— Joe Abercrombie

400. “Names turned over by time, like the plough turning the soil. Bringing up the new while the old were buried in the mud.”

— Joe Abercrombie