Rogues

I sometimes think that 'friend' is just a word I use for all the people I haven't murdered yet.

Books should broaden us, take us to places we have never been and show us things we’ve never seen, expand our horizons and our way of looking at the world. Limiting your reading to a single genre defeats that. It limits us, makes us smaller. It seemed to me, then as now, that there were good stories and bad stories, and that was the only distinction that truly mattered.

I'll send a boy round to [the crazy farmer] Martin's and ask him to come by with a couple bottles." "Get five or six," Bast said. "It's getting cold at night. Winter's coming." The innkeeper smiled. "I'm sure Martin will be flattered.

Sometimes they are heroes. Sometimes they are villains. More often they are something in between, grey characters … and grey has long been my favorite color. It is so much more interesting than black or white.

Love,' Asa said, 'is like a pigeon shitting over a crowd.' 'How so?' 'Where it lands hasn't got much to do with who deserves it.

So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was as simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing. But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin?

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

No, she won't," Bast said smugly. "Because I'm all grown, and I can do whatever I want with my pants. I could light them on fire and I wouldn't get in any trouble at all.

Empathetic silence is one of the most underused weapons in the world.

Women are generally responsible for all the cooking and planning of meals in private households, but I have never known any to bother about "proper meals" without a man around. Left to ourselves, we glory in "feasting" - standing at the kitchen table, or wrapped in blankets before the fire - on whatever wild assortment we can forage from the larder, or delight in a "nursery tea" of soft-boiled eggs with bread and butter; or dine on tea and cakes, or apples and cheese, while reading." The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives

The Marquis de Carabas always had a plan, and he always had a fallback plan; and beneath these plans he always had a real plan, one that he would not even let himself know about, for when the original plan and the fallback plan had both gone south.

My colleague and I are journalists. ... Not of the muckraking variety, I hasten to assure you! Corruption is a necessary and time-honored concomitant of any functioning government, which we support wholeheartedly.

He looked like a naughty child who had managed to steal the moon and eat it.

An inside joke is like a symbol of friendship without having to do the work required of an actual friendship.

Lack of subtlety, that’s how you beat magic.

Sure, kid. Look, there's a very old saying in my family: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is another wizard fucking with you.

People love their fathers. Their sisters. People love dogs or songs or poems. If I've got to be the champion of something, make it something that doesn't change what it means every time someone says it.

People are dumb. I’ll never get over how dumb people are.

Han is only in it for the money, he makes that plain right from the start … which makes it all the more thrilling when he returns at the end of Star Wars to put that rocket up Darth Vader’s butt. (Oh, and he DOES shoot first in the cantina scene, no matter how George Lucas retcons that first movie.)

We’ll both walk away smiling, in harmonious equipoise.

You have courage, minstrel,” said Piros. Alaric shook his head. “Less than you think, good Piros. But I have considerable curiosity, and that sometimes masquerades as courage.

There was no arguing with a man's faith in the legends of his childhood.

Love is like recognition. It's the moment when you catch sight of someone and you think There is someone I have business with in this life. There is someone I was born to know.

That is a sexist and, if I may dare say so, ungallant slander upon the fair sex, and I am astonished to hear it coming from your mouth.

This is a mess. A mess! Shraplin, you’re probably sober-esque. How many cards in a standard deck?” “Sixty, boss.” “How many cards presently visible in our hands or on the table?” “Seventy-eight.” “That’s ridiculous,” said Amarelle. “Who’s not cheating?

He was bright as broken glass and sharp enough to cut himself.

That’s what they always ended up saying: “But I’m just sad.” Feeling sad means having too much time on your hands, usually. Really. I’m not a licensed therapist but usually it means too much time.

Get five or six,” Bast said. “It’s getting cold at night. Winter’s coming.” The innkeeper smiled. “I’m sure Martin will be flattered.

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.