Top 180 Scott Lynch Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.”

— Scott Lynch

2. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

3. “Stand aside, and try not to catch fire if I shed sparks of genius.”

— Scott Lynch

4. “If reassurances could dull pain, nobody would ever go to the trouble of pressing grapes.”

— Scott Lynch

5. “Any man can fart in a closed room and say that he commands the wind.”

— Scott Lynch

6. “I can’t name the poison that’s killing your friend. But the one that’s killing you is called hope.”

— Scott Lynch

7. “It was strange, how readily authority could be conjured with nothing but a bit of strutting jackassery.”

— Scott Lynch

8. “When you can’t cheat the game, you’d best find a means to cheat the players.”

— Scott Lynch

9. “If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.” Chinese Proverb.”

— Scott Lynch

10. “Yeah, but if I don’t start my nervous pacing now, I’ll never have it all done in time.”

— Scott Lynch

11. “Enlightenment! When it comes, it comes like a brick to the head, doesn’t it?”

— Scott Lynch

12. “You can’t help being young, but it’s past time that you stopped being stupid.”

— Scott Lynch

13. “A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine on command, the world mutters darkly about her moods.”

— Scott Lynch

14. “My name’s Jean Tannen, and I’m the ambush.”

— Scott Lynch

15. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

16. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

17. “We like what we like, we want what we want, and nobody needs to give us permission to feel that way!”

— Scott Lynch

18. “You simply collapsed, sir. In layman’s terms, your body revoked its permission for you to continue heaping abuse upon it.”

— Scott Lynch

19. “I have only two wishes,” said Jean. “The first is for strong coffee, and the second is for stronger coffee.”

— Scott Lynch

20. “I think piracy is a bit like drinking. You want to stay out all night doing it, you pay the price the next day.”

— Scott Lynch

21. “His remorse and better judgment arrived, late as usual, like party guests riding in just after the social disaster of the season has already erupted.”

— Scott Lynch

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

— Scott Lynch

23. “Run like the hounds of hell on a sinner’s scent!”

— Scott Lynch

24. “Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks.”

— Scott Lynch

25. “You’re a difficult woman, Sabetha. But then, difficult women are the only ones worth falling in love with.”

— Scott Lynch

26. “Difficult” and “impossible” are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common.”

— Scott Lynch

27. “Crooked Warden, I will fear no darkness for the night is yours. Your night is my cloak, my shield, my escape from those who hunt to feed the noose. I will fear no evil, for you have made the night my friend.”

— Scott Lynch

28. “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

29. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

30. “If I could just somehow let you see yourself through my eyes. I guarantee your feet would never touch the ground again.”

— Scott Lynch

31. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

32. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

33. “Better to say nothing and be thought a fool, than to interfere in the business of wizards and remove all doubt.”

— Scott Lynch

34. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

35. “What is government but theft by consent?”

— Scott Lynch

36. “Crooked Warden,” said Locke, “men are stupid. Protect us from ourselves. If you can’t, let it be quick and painless.”

— Scott Lynch

37. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

38. “To us – richer and cleverer than everyone else!”

— Scott Lynch

39. “As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It’s not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination.”

— Scott Lynch

40. “It had the expression common to all kittens, that of a tyrant in the becoming. I was comfortable, and you dared to move, those jade eyes said. For that you must die.”

— Scott Lynch

41. “A book without spine or covers is like an unquiet spirit without mortal form. Whatever’s left of it holds itself together out of sheer resentment, roaming without purpose, lashing out at whatever crosses its path.”

— Scott Lynch

42. “The years play a sort of alchemical trick, transmuting one’s mutterings to a state of respectability. Give advice at forty and you’re a nag. Give it at seventy and you’re a sage.”

— Scott Lynch

43. “Cold walls do not a prison make, nor iron bands a bondsman.”

— Scott Lynch

44. “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?”

— Scott Lynch

45. “It was raining when Amarelle Parathis went out just after sunset to find a drink, and there was strange magic in the rain. It came down in pale lavenders and coppers and reds, soft lines like liquid dusk that turned luminescent mist on the warm pavement. The air itself felt like champagne bubbles breaking against the skin. Over the dark shapes of distant rooftops, blue-white lightning blazed, and stuttering thunder chased it.”

— Scott Lynch

46. “She ran, as best she could run; as she made her way toward the rail it became a jog, and then a desperate hop. She was on fire all the way, screaming all the way, unstoppable all the way.”

— Scott Lynch

47. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

48. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

49. “You know who waxes philosophical about the tiniest weaknesses of enemies? The powerless.”

— Scott Lynch

50. “Wicked sisters,’ said Jean, as he let the hatchets fall out of his right robe sleeve and into his hand, ‘I’d like you to meet the Wicked Sisters.”

— Scott Lynch