Joe Abercrombie Quotes

35 Sourced Quotes

Things aren't what they used to be' is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.

Joe Abercrombie
All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain't no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I've learned... just to stick in the place I'm at. Just to be the man I am.

Joe Abercrombie
Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.

Joe Abercrombie
People love to see death. It reminds them that however mean, however low, however horrible their lives become… at least they have one.

Joe Abercrombie
A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time and never gotten anywhere.

Joe Abercrombie
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
It's hard to stay calm when you're terrified, helpless, alone, at the mercy of men with no mercy at all.

Joe Abercrombie
I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn to stop making them.

Joe Abercrombie
Sometimes men change for the better. Sometimes men change for the worse. And often, very often, given time and opportunity...' He waved his flask around for a moment, then shrugged. 'They change back.

Joe Abercrombie
What's the difference? Fill a hundred pits with dead Northmen, congratulations, have a parade! Kill one man in the same uniform as you? A crime. A murder. Worse than despicable. Are we not all men? All blood and bone and dreams?

Joe Abercrombie
Strange, how the best moments of our lives we scarcely notice except in looking back.

Joe Abercrombie
If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best.

Joe Abercrombie
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
Love is a fine cushion to rest upon, but only hate can make you a better person.

Joe Abercrombie
There was no such thing as luck. Luck was a word idiots used to explain the consequences of their own rashness, and selfishness, and stupidity. More often than not bad luck meant bad plans.

Joe Abercrombie
It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.

Joe Abercrombie
You don't pick your family, you take what you're given and you make the best of it.

Joe Abercrombie
The truth is like salt. Men want to taste
a little, but too much makes everyone
sick.

Joe Abercrombie
Travel brings wisdom only to the wise. It renders the ignorant more ignorant than ever.

Joe Abercrombie
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
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
Good steel bends, but never breaks. Good steel stays always sharp and ready. Good steel feels no pain, no pity, and above all, no remorse

Joe Abercrombie
Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.

Joe Abercrombie
You should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.

Joe Abercrombie
That's what courage is. Taking your disappointments and your failures, your guilt and your shame, all the wounds received and inflicted, and sinking them in the past. Starting again. Damning yesterday and facing tomorrow with your head held high. Times change. It's those that see it coming, and plan for it, and change themselves to suit, that prosper.

Joe Abercrombie
Names turned over by time, like the plough turning the soil. Bringing up the new while the old were buried in the mud.

Joe Abercrombie
A whole new thing. A forging of the humble parts of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it...a cheese-trap.

Joe Abercrombie
Fearlessness is a fool's boast, to my mind. The only men with no fear in them are dead, or the soon to be dead, maybe. Fear teaches you caution, and respect for your enemy, and to avoid sharp edges used in anger. All good things in their place, believe me. Fear can bring you out alive, and that's the very best anyone can hope for from any fight. Every man who's worth a damn feels fear. It's the use you make of it that counts.

Joe Abercrombie
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
I've made peace with myself.
Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win.
Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting.

Joe Abercrombie