Top 180 Scott Lynch Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 4 of 4

151. “Are you smarter than my chicken?” cried a weathered, wild-haired woman holding a nonplussed bird over her head. At her feet was a wooden board covered with numbers and arcane symbols. “Lay your bets! Test your wits against a trained fowl! One coppin a try! Are you smarter than my chicken? You might be in for a surprise!”

— Scott Lynch

152. “Enthusiasm is the first step, Artfulness comes later.”

— Scott Lynch

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

— Scott Lynch

154. “I’m not as reckless as I used to be. You know, when I was little.”

— Scott Lynch

155. “Sophara scrawled orders on a slate and handed it to one of the libationarians, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the contents and locations of all the bottles kept the bar running.”

— Scott Lynch

156. “Fling arrows at all the strange things you see out here, and all you do is run out of arrows.”

— Scott Lynch

157. “You needed a bath,” Jean interrupted. “You were covered in self-pity.”

— Scott Lynch

158. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

159. “Remember how she joked about twenty armed people in the next room?” said Jean with a sigh. He set down the book he’d been reading. “There were twenty armed men in the next room.”

— Scott Lynch

160. “His view of the sky spun first left then right, as though the world were trying on strange new angles for his approval.”

— Scott Lynch

161. “Blessed is the one who aids a thief, hides a thief, revenges a thief, and remembers a thief, for they shall inherit the night.”

— Scott Lynch

162. “You’ve come to the only house in Karthain with coffee worth murdering for. We have seven distinct blends, from the aromatic Syresti dry to the thick – ’ ‘I’ll take the kind I don’t have to think about.’ ‘The very best kind of all.’ Josten snapped his fingers, and a nearby waiter hurried off.”

— Scott Lynch

163. “What do you think of the old boy?” said Jean. “He’s got a strangely sunny view of ten years of defeat,” said Locke, “but if I get killed in the next six weeks, I want him to speak at my funeral.”

— Scott Lynch

164. “You know who else thought lightly of them, once? The Falconer.”

— Scott Lynch

165. “The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control.”

— Scott Lynch

166. “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.”

— Scott Lynch

167. “I mean, it’s not calling me ‘Locke.’ It knows my real name.”

— Scott Lynch

168. “The world had a fragile liquid quality, running at the edges and spinning on previously unrevealed axes.”

— Scott Lynch

169. “AN OLD Camorri proverb has it that the only constant in the soul of man is inconstancy;.”

— Scott Lynch

170. “You write?” “Why, all the time,” said Locke, “except of course when I’m wrong.”

— Scott Lynch

171. “As for why we’re going over the plan again, let me remind you that one good screwup will make the fate of those poor bastards look sunny in comparison to what we’ll get.”

— Scott Lynch

172. “Barsavi knew how to create expectations, Locke, and how to use those expectations to mislead those who would harm him.”

— Scott Lynch

173. “Gods, when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another?”

— Scott Lynch

174. “There was no point in stealing well or wisely if the loot couldn’t be stashed somewhere safe.”

— Scott Lynch

175. “There was danger in her tone. “Am I really? Why should that be exceptional? 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

176. “But this doesn’t mean I’m getting attached to you.”

— Scott Lynch

177. “Surely you realize,” said Patience, “that cats are no great respecters of human opinion.”

— Scott Lynch

178. “Sad day, my loves, a proper tragedy. But when the milk’s gone bad you might as well look forward to cheese, hmm?”

— Scott Lynch

179. “I’m no one you want to learn from.”

— Scott Lynch

180. “A voice called out, cold as chloroform and old shame.”

— Scott Lynch

181. “What kind of knife is this?” Locke held a rounded buttering utensil up for Chains’ inspection. “It’s all wrong. You couldn’t kill anyone with this.”

— Scott Lynch

182. “I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I don’t. There’s always a way to attack or a way to escape. That’s the way it is out here.’ She rolled over on top of him and kissed him. ‘I told you not to give up, Jean Tannen, and the thing about me is I get my way.’ ‘Gods,’ whispered Jean, ‘how did I ever live before I met you?’ ‘Sadly, poorly, miserably,’ she said. ‘I make everything so much better. It’s why the gods put me here.”

— Scott Lynch

183. “What a stupid, reckless, idiotic, ridiculous damn thing to do! I haven’t the words to express my admiration.”

— Scott Lynch

184. “I weep again for your hardship,” said Locke. “Forced by cruel circumstance to throw garden parties.”

— Scott Lynch

185. “Locke blinked and cursed his condition; he’d heard sailors talk of “dry drunk” – the stupidity, weakness, and irritability that seized a man in great want of water.”

— Scott Lynch

186. “I am hard pressed on my right; my center is giving way; situation excellent. I am attacking.” General Ferdinand Foch.”

— Scott Lynch

187. “Distrust everyone,’ she said, ’and you can never be betrayed. Opposed, but never betrayed.”

— Scott Lynch

188. “Do you have a name?” asked Jean. “Lots. All of them lovely and none of them true,” she replied.”

— Scott Lynch

189. “Have we been neglecting our prayers this week? Did one of us fart in a temple or something?”

— Scott Lynch

190. “You have more chances of giving birth to a live hippopotamus,” said Requin, “than the best thief alive has of making it past the cordon drawn around my vault.”

— Scott Lynch

191. “If only you’d landed on your head, you’d have nothing to fear but the bill for damaged cobblestones.”

— Scott Lynch

192. “So now we’ve got Requin thinking that Stragos is out to get him. I’ve never helped precipitate a civil war before. This should be fun.”

— Scott Lynch

193. “Painting, carving, rigging – you two will be rather busy.’ ‘Wow,’ said Locke, ‘that sounds like an absolutely grand way to spend the voyage.’ It wasn’t.”

— Scott Lynch

194. “A glass poured on the ground for a stranger without friends.”

— Scott Lynch

195. “Well,” said Galdo, “this is the damnedest damn thing that ever dammed things up for us.”

— Scott Lynch

196. “Why are you always so averse to fiction, when we’ve made it our meal ticket?”

— Scott Lynch

197. “The gods spit on those without honor, you know! It’ll be a cold hell, and a dark one, for you!” “I’m chock-full of honor, sir. Got lots of it. Keep it right here between my empty stomach and my puckered white ass, which you may kiss, by the way.”

— Scott Lynch

198. “Discretion is a pastime for other people.”

— Scott Lynch