Quotes from Last Argument of Kings

Joe Abercrombie ·  536 pages

Rating: (79.4K votes)


“I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Travel brings wisdom only to the wise. It renders the ignorant more ignorant than ever.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“You have to realistic about these things.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings



Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Sometimes it doesn't matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person?”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“You can never have too many knives, his father had told him. Unless they're pointed at you, and by people who don't like you much. ”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“It's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterwards. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings



“Chose? If you believe that I chose any part of the pitiful shadow of a life you see before you, you are very much mistaken. I chose glory and success. The box did not contain what was written on the lid.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Luck is a woman. She's drawn to those that least deserve her.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“But you can't truly hate a man without loving him first, and there's always a trace of that love left over.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“It always amazes me, how swiftly problems can be solved, once you start cutting things off people.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings



“The only difference between war and murder is the number of dead.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Round and round in circles we go, clutching at successes we never grasp, endlessly tripping over the same old failures. Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“But you love to play the good man,
don't you? Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a
hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an
excuse.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Power makes all things right. That is my first law, and my last. That is the only law that I acknowledge.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Fear has made them sloppy. The world teeters at a precipe. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man's efficiency.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings



“They appear somewhat unreliable," he murmured.
"Unreliable? Nonsense, Superior! Out of luck is all, and we both know how that goes, no? Why, there's not a man of them I wouldn't trust my mother to."
"Are you sure?"
"She's been dead these twenty years. What harm could they do her now?”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“The lamplight gleamed on the Magus’ white grin. “People like to watch the pretty puppets, Superior. Even a glimpse of the puppeteer can be most upsetting for them. Why, they might even suddenly notice the strings around their own wrists”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“The lowly have small ambitions, and are satisfied with small indulgences. They need not get fair treatment. They need only think that they do... ”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then one day we look up and find that we are . . . this.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“First it is done to us, then we do it to others, then we order it done. Such is the way of things”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings



“Nothing had worked out the way he’d hoped. He should’ve expected it by now, maybe. After all, things never had before. And yet he kept on pissing into the wind. He was like a man whose door’s too low, but instead of working out how to duck, keeps on smacking his head into the lintel every day of his miserable life. He wanted to feel sorry for himself, but he knew he deserved no better. A man can’t do the things he’d done, and hope for happy endings.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Mercy and weakness are the same thing in war, and there's no prize for nice behavior.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Have you no pity?' Glokta could only shrug. 'I did have. As a boy I was soft-hearted beyond the point of foolishness. I swear, I would cry at a fly caught in a spider's web.' He grimaced at a brutal spasm through his leg as he turned for the door. 'Constant pain has cured me of that.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Life is a series of things we would rather not do.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings


“Trust. It was a word that only liars used. A word the truthful had no need of.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from Last Argument of Kings



About the author

Joe Abercrombie
Born place: in Lancaster, England, The United Kingdom
Born date December 31, 1974
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