Joe Abercrombie

By swap news do you mean drink?" "I do, and that excessively.

Memories sharp enough to cut himself on - the smells, the sounds, the feel of the air on his skin, the desperate hope and mad anger.

Monza never had understood why getting out a tit or two made for a better painting. But painters seemed to think it did, so tits is what you got.

Men are brittle, I reckon. They don't bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them.

The memories of our glories fade, and rot away into half-arsed anecdotes, thin and unconvincing as some other bastard's lies. The failures, the disappointments, the regrets, they stay raw as the moments they happened.

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.

Are you entirely sure of that knot?' asked Morveer. 'There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop'.'Twenty-eight strides', said Friendly.'What?''The drop'.A brief pause, 'That is not helpful'.

A set of huge marble busts stared smugly down from on high: great merchants and financiers of Styrian history, by the look of them. Criminals made heroes by colossal success.

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

Shivers heaved out a sigh. __ust trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I__ one of those _ you__e got a word for it, don__ you?___diots?__e looked sideways at her. __t was a different one I had in mind.___ptimists.___hat__ the one. I__ an optimist.___ow__ it working out for you?___ot great, but I keep hoping.___hat__ optimists. You bastards never learn.

Enough pain makes a coward of anyone.

One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.

The world is all change, my friend. We all would like to go back, but the past is done. We must look forwards. We must change ourselves, however painful it may be, or be left behind.

Armour... is part of a state of mind... in which you admit the possibility... of being hit.

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.

Whirrun ignored __m. __hen, when I__e got two cut,_ and he dropped a pale slab of cheese on one slice then slapped the other on top like he was catching a fly, __ trap the cheese between then, and there you have it!___read and cheese._ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. __ust the same as I__e got._ And he bit off the cheese and tossed it to Scorry.Whirrun sighed. __ave none of you no vision?_ He held up his masterpiece to such light as there was, which was almost none. __his is no more bread and cheese than a fine axe is wood and iron, or a live person is meat and har.___hat is it, then?_ asked Drfod, rocking back from his wet wood and tossing the flint aside in disgust.__ whole new thing. A forging of the humble part of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it _ a cheese-trap._ Whirrun took a dainty nibble from one corner. __h, yes, my friends. This tastes like _ progress_

Every war carries within it the seeds of the next.

...Chief without soldiers is just a very lonely man in a big bloody field