“Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Has it ever occured to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes. But a sword...a sword has a voice.
Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear. A gentle word. A word of caution. Do you hear it?
Now, compare it to the sword half drawn. It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?
Now compare it to the sword full drawn. It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be. What is my story now, I wonder?”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“I’ve fought in three campaigns,” he began. “In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. I’ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I’ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I’ve known little else. I’ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that’s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper.
“I’ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. I’ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I’ve run away myself more than once. I’ve pissed myself with fear. I’ve begged for my life. I’ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.”
He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. “There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Well. What can we do, except try to do better?”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“But that was civilisation, so far as Logen could tell. People with nothing better to do, dreaming up ways to make easy things difficult.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. Still, the struggle itself is worthwhile. Knowledge is the root of power, after all.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“You have to learn to love the small things in life, like a hot bath. You have to love the small things, when you have nothing else.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Hard words are for fools and cowards.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“History is littered with dead good men.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“There was nothing to be gained by losing his temper. There was never anything to be gained by that.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“It's hard to stay calm when you're terrified, helpless, alone, at the mercy of men with no mercy at all.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Hurray', shouted Glokta. 'Porridge again!'He looked over at the motionless Practical. 'Porridge and honey, better than money, everything's funny, with porridge and honey!”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Something dug into the Bloody-Nine's back, but there was no pain. It was a sign. A message in a secret tongue, that only he could understand. It told him where the next dead man was standing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Some things have to be done. It's better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Kill me?' The Bloody-Nine laughed louder than ever. 'I do the killing, fool!”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of.
The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends.
Blood gets you nothing but more blood.
It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it.
I should never be free of it.
I’ve earned it.
I’ve deserved it.
I’ve sought it out.
Such is my punishment.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“I’m trying to put things in the best light, but a turd’s a turd, whatever light it’s in!”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“I will confess!" shrieked Teufel, "I will confess!"
"Excellent," said Glokta brightly.
"Excellent," said Severard.
"Etherer," said Practical Frost.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Straining and straining, getting nowhere, but unable to stop pushing in case the rock should fall and crush him. Meanwhile, arrogant bastards who were in just the same danger lazed on the slopes beside him saying, ‘Well, it’s not my rock.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Different men have different ways, Logen had told him once, and you have to have fear to have courage.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Everything frightens me, and it's well that it does. Fear is a good friend to the hunted, it's kept me alive this long. The dead are fearless, and I don't care to join them.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Body found floating by the docks...”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Why do big men tend to have such little brains? Perhaps they get by on brawn too often, and their minds dry up like plums in the sun.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Then, once he had eaten, he would ask the spirits for guidance. Their guidance was pretty useless, but the company would be welcome.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Life – the way it really is – is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse’ Joseph Brodsky”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“What a place. Glokta stifled a smile. It reminds me of myself, in a way. We both were magnificent once, and we both have our best days far behind us.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
“Broken hearts heal with time, but broken teeth never do.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Blade Itself
Joe Abercrombie
Born place: in Lancaster, England, The United Kingdom
Born date December 31, 1974
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“She learned quickly that it was not good to be too different. Great differences caused envy, suspicion, fear, charges of witchcraft.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Wild Seed
“The reason why darkness terrifying for us, he reflected, is that there remains in us the instinctive fear the primitive man had when there was as yet no light.”
― Shūsaku Endō, quote from Silence
“. . . my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong key ring. I walk in, and am thankful that Jasper is home and healthy and stuffing his face with pineapple wedges. And on and on. I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.”
― A.J. Jacobs, quote from The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
“I couldn't imagine such men at rest, their faces smooth and innocent despite the wickedness of their hearts.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“The concept that really gets the goat of the gay-hater, the idea that really spins their melon and sickens their stomachs is that most terrible and terrifying of all human notions, love.
That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand. Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the world's full octave.
Love as Agape, Eros and Philos; love as infatuation, obsession and lust; love as torture, euphoria, ecstasy and oblivion (this is beginning to read like a Calvin Klein perfume catalogue); love as need, passion and desire.”
― Stephen Fry, quote from Moab Is My Washpot
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The Diamond Age: Or,...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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