“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
“Too many people look at it as though it (the hijab) has bizarre powers sewn into its microfibers. Powers that transform Muslim girls into UCOs (Unidentified Covered Objects), which turn Muslim girls from an 'us' to a 'them.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, quote from Does My Head Look Big in This?
“...because in one sense the drinker learns wisdom, in the words of Goethe or Blake or whichever it was "The pathway to wisdom lies through excess”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from Big Sur
“Dear Julie:
If I didn't feel that there is some good in your story, I wouldn't take the time to write a criticism of it. But there is some good in it, some points that make me feel that if you expend the effort(Look who's talking about expending the effort, I couldn't help thinking) you may well achieve your very worthy ambition.
First of all, you have an ear for cadence. Your sentences flow rather smoothly, and the continuity of your paragraphs is quite good.
Secondly, your imagery is sharp and clear-cut. I could smell that dank, rat-infested attic and I was more than a little in love with your pretty heroine by the time she emerged from her third paragraph. Furthermore, you occasionally achieve poetic effects which are pleasing.
But, my darling niece, your villains have nothing but venom in their souls, and your sympathetic characters are ready to step right off into Paradise without one spot to tarnish their purity. People aren't like that, Julie. Take a look around you.
Again, all your colors, your moods, your nusances, are essentially feminine, and it just doesn't ring true to be told that a man is responsible for them. No, Julie, it will be a long time before you speak and think and feel like an anguished old German musician of eighty! And, after all, what do you know about the problems of musical composition, or the life of an impoverised German laborer such as the landlord in his nineteenth-century environment? And how much do you know about sadism and brutality?
I must talk to you about any number of points. When you get home from school tomorrow, I shall have some recommendations to make; also some assignments. I am quite excited. It well may be that I have the making of a future writer in my hands.
Uncle Haskell”
― Irene Hunt, quote from Up a Road Slowly
“We’re good together, Megan. It’s not about glass slippers or fairy tales or love at any sight. It’s not about private schools or mutual goals or any of the other things we’ve talked about today. It’s about you and me fitting together. It’s about this feeling of rightness you told me about last night. The one I’ve had since I met you. And I keep seeing signs of it today. Tell me. Tell me you feel it too.”
― Mira Lyn Kelly, quote from Waking Up Married
“Shit. He was perfect. And he was a killer.”
― Tijan, quote from Carter Reed
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