Quotes from The First Law Trilogy

“Doing better next time. That’s what life is.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“But 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 First Law Trilogy

“lies. The hardest kind to see through. The kind you tell yourself.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“Come,” he whispered. They all were welcome.
They scattered for the racks, seizing their spiked swords, and their sharp axes, and the Bloody-Nine laughed to watch them. Armed or not, their death was a thing already decided. It was written into the cavern in lines of fire and lines of shadow. Now he would write it in lines of blood. “Die!” he roared, and the blade made circles, savage and beautiful, the letter on the metal burning red and leaving bright trails behind. And where the circles passed everything would be made right. The Shanka would scream and gibber, and the pieces of them would scatter, and they would be sliced and divided as neatly as meat on the butcher’s block
The Bloody-Nine showed his teeth, and smiled to be free, and to see the good work done so well. He knocked a barbed sword from a Flathead’s hand, seized it by the scruff of the neck and forced its face down into the channel where the molten steel flowed, furious yellow, and its head hissed and bubbled, shooting out stinking steam.
“Burn!” laughed the Bloody-Nine, and the ruined corpses, and their gaping wounds, and their fallen weapons, and the boiling bright iron laughed with him.
Only the Shanka did not laugh. They knew their hour was come.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“More often than not bad luck meant bad plans.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“Sand dan Glokta, shield to the helpless. Is it ever too late to be . . . a good man?”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“The blade itself incites to deeds of violence’ Homer”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“There are few ills a good cup of tea won’t help with.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“He had discovered early in his military career that if one has an effective and experienced officer above, coupled with effective and experienced soldiers below, one need do, and know, nothing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“Nothing to it. You treat folk the way you’d want to be treated, and you can’t go far wrong.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“The best lessons one teaches oneself.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“Perhaps we’ll have some answers, at least, before the end. I always dreamed of dying well-informed.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“You don’t pick your family, you take what you’re given and you make the best of it.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“She tipped back her head and swilled down the last of her wine. ‘Having fucked the groom is really no excuse for missing a wedding, you know.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

“Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. Selfishness belongs to children, and to halfwits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one’s own troubles. In order to act like a king, one need only treat everyone else like one.”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The First Law Trilogy

About the author

Popular quotes

“They had no idea that normal didn't exist for me anymore. Normal had been smashed on the rocks beneath the bridge.”
― Cat Clarke, quote from Undone

“But money, if not mastered, can bring ruin as well as riches,”
― Amitav Ghosh, quote from Sea of Poppies

“God is the most beautiful, and beauty is the expression of God. If you can't appreciate beauty in the world how can you understand God?”
― Amit Ray, quote from Meditation: Insights and Inspirations

“Love wasn’t about being right or wrong, but about standing up and helping when your partner’s back was bowed.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from Oathbringer

“Sometimes I think there’s someone up there just sitting around thinking of ways to make me look like a complete moron. Seriously, I bet there’s an angel—or, more likely, a demon—assigned just to me. And every day it gets up and asks itself what it can do to ruin my life. Well, today it got an A plus.”
― Michael Thomas Ford, quote from Suicide Notes

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.