Top 500 Joe Abercrombie Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “Of all things, men most love to watch ohers face Death. It reminds them they yet live.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

403. “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

404. “He was less and less sure with every day that being a better man was worth all the effort.”

— Joe Abercrombie

405. “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

406. “And loyalty? A trick those with power played on those without to make them act against their own interests.”

— Joe Abercrombie

407. “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

408. “Her mother had always warned her a man is judged by his best moment, a woman by her worst.”

— Joe Abercrombie

409. “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

410. “Broad kept sweeping. He’d learned in Styria there’s a lot of things that are better not thought about. Couldn’t be a coincidence that the happiest men Broad had ever known were generally the stupidest.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

412. “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

413. “Hoping for a thing often seems the best way o’ bringing on the opposite.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

417. “There’s no need to rush, Arch Lector. That’s the trouble with good legs, you tend to run around too much. If you have trouble moving, on the other hand, you don’t move until you damn well know it’s time.”

— Joe Abercrombie

418. “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

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

423. “You’re a fine one to talk, Skinny Rikke. Every pinch o’ meat fell off you when you went to see the witch. You’re like a head stuck on a spear these days, but without the flies. Most o’ the flies, at least.” And she burst out laughing.”

— Joe Abercrombie

424. “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

425. “When do I rest, then?” “In the songs of great heroes, do you hear often of resting?”

— Joe Abercrombie

426. “No one cares about the past any more,′ he whispered. ‘They don’t see that you can’t have a future without a past.”

— Joe Abercrombie

427. “When you have a load to lift, you’re better lifting than weeping.”

— Joe Abercrombie

428. “Still, it was better to swear an oath and never follow through than not even to bother with the oath. Wasn’t it?”

— Joe Abercrombie

429. “It is easy to speak of the past, impossible to go there.”

— Joe Abercrombie

430. “Some men you stick to right off. But it’s those that take time to stick that stick longest.”

— Joe Abercrombie

431. “Vick learned long ago that might have is a game with no winners. Few games do have winners, in the end.”

— Joe Abercrombie

432. “It is healthy to be disabused of our self-deceptions every now and then, even if it hurts.”

— Joe Abercrombie

433. “You keep an oath not for the oath but for yourself.”

— Joe Abercrombie

434. “Men must sometimes do what they do not like if they are to be remembered.”

— Joe Abercrombie

435. “Why give them a proper burning?” Rulf caught the lad by the arm. “Because if we beat beggars here, we’re no better than beggars. If we beat great men, we’re greater still.”

— Joe Abercrombie

436. “Stacked up after the plague came through, spread out after a battle?’ ‘Aye, I’ve seen that.’ ‘Did you notice some of those corpses had a kind of glow about them? A sweet smell like roses on a spring morning?’ Shivers frowned. ‘No.’ ‘The good men and the bad, then – all looked about the same, did they? They always did to me, I can tell you that.”

— Joe Abercrombie

437. “By swap news do you mean drink?” “I do, and that excessively.”

— Joe Abercrombie

438. “Love and hate have just a knife’s edge between them.”

— Joe Abercrombie

439. “There was the very slightest pause. Probably no more than a breath, for all it felt far longer. While everyone assessed the odds and the outcomes. While everyone judged just where the shifting power sat. While everything dropped into place in Dimbik’s mind and, no doubt, the minds of every other person present. Just a breath, and everything was rearranged.”

— Joe Abercrombie

440. “She never saw more damage done than by folk acting on high principle.”

— Joe Abercrombie

441. “Some men laugh easily. It makes them winning dinner companions.”

— Joe Abercrombie

442. “Shock and surprise, my little beauties, and quickness to strike, and lack of pity. These are the things that make a killer.”

— Joe Abercrombie

443. “Could he truly pretend that he wanted to be her friend? A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time, and had never got anywhere.”

— Joe Abercrombie

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

— Joe Abercrombie

445. “There is a time for wondering what a man wants,” said Fror, no fear at all in his. “And there is a time for splitting his head. This is that second time.”

— Joe Abercrombie

446. “History is not the story of battles between right and wrong, but between one man’s right and another’s. Evil is not the opposite of good. It is what we call another man’s notion of good when it differs from ours.”

— Joe Abercrombie

447. “We all got our reasons... good men and bad men. It’s all a matter of where you stand.”

— Joe Abercrombie

448. “In bloody days, swords were worth more than gods.”

— Joe Abercrombie

449. “Either you are a part of my future, or a relic of the past.”

— Joe Abercrombie

450. “Principles are like clothes,’ said Vick, straightening her jacket. ‘You have to change them to suit the audience.”

— Joe Abercrombie