Glen Spratt > Glen's Quotes

“That was the difference between a hero and a villain, a soldier and a murderer, a victory and a crime. Which side of a river you called home.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold

“Strange, how the best moments of our lives we scarcely notice except in looking back.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Red Country

“Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Red Country

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

“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, The Blade Itself

“Luck is a woman. She's drawn to those that least deserve her.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“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, The Blade Itself

“The wise wait for their moment, but never let it pass.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

“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, Best Served Cold

“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, Best Served Cold

“Hard words are for fools and cowards.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“A man lost in the desert must take such water as he is offered, no matter who it comes from.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged

“People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“History is littered with dead good men.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“The only difference between war and murder is the number of dead.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“I'm a fucking coward."
"Maybe." Craw jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Whirrun's corpse. "There's a hero. Tell me who's better off.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

“It always amazes me, how swiftly problems can be solved, once you start cutting things off people.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“All an arsehole knows about is shit. ~ Dogman”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged

“An open mind is like to an open wound,' growled Glokta. 'Vulnerable to poison.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged

“Shivers heaved out a sigh. “Just trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I’m one of those … you’ve got a word for it, don’t you?”

“Idiots?”

He looked sideways at her. “It was a different one I had in mind.”

“Optimists.”

“That’s the one. I’m an optimist.”

“How’s it working out for you?”

“Not great, but I keep hoping.”

“That’s optimists. You bastards never learn.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold

“Knives,’ muttered Calder, ‘and threats, and bribes, and war?’

Bayaz’ eyes shone with the lamplight. ‘Yes?’

‘What kind of a fucking wizard are you?’

‘The kind you obey.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

“What is the world coming to when an honest man cannot burn corpses without suspicion?" asked Nothing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

“Strange, isn't it,' mused Glokta as he watched him struggle for air. 'Big men, small men, thin men, fat men, clever men, stupid men, they all respond the same to a fist in the guts. One minute you think you're the most powerful man in the world. The next you can't even breathe by yourself.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged

“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

“Round and round in circles we go, clutching at successes we never grasp, endlessly tripping over the same old failures. Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold

“But you love to play the good man,
don't you? Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a
hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an
excuse.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“The wise speaker first learns when to stay silent”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

“Power makes all things right. That is my first law, and my last. That is the only law that I acknowledge.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“There was nothing to be gained by losing his temper. There was never anything to be gained by that.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself