02c. 1974 ADWhirrun ignored ‘em. ‘Then, when I’ve 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, ‘I trap the cheese between then, and there you have it!’‘Bread and cheese.’ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. ‘Just the same as I’ve got.’ And he bit off the cheese and tossed it to Scorry.Whirrun sighed. ‘Have none of you no vision?’ He held up his masterpiece to such light as there was, which was almost none. ‘This is no more bread and cheese than a fine axe is wood and iron, or a live person is meat and har.’‘What is it, then?’ asked Drfod, rocking back from his wet wood and tossing the flint aside in disgust.‘A 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. ‘Oh, yes, my friends. This tastes like … progress…Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
03c. 1974 ADStrange, 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 / quote ↗
04c. 1974 ADArmour... is part of a state of mind... in which you admit the possibility... of being hit.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
05c. 1974 ADThe 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.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
06c. 1974 ADOne cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
08c. 1974 ADShivers 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 / quote ↗
09c. 1974 ADA 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.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
10c. 1974 ADAre 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'.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
11c. 1974 ADThe 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.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
12c. 1974 ADMen are brittle, I reckon. They don't bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
13c. 1974 ADMonza 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.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
14c. 1974 ADMemories sharp enough to cut himself on - the smells, the sounds, the feel of the air on his skin, the desperate hope and mad anger.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
16c. 1974 ADit was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotionJoe Abercrombie / quote ↗
17c. 1974 ADThe lowly have small ambitions, and are satisfied with small indulgences. They need not get fair treatment. They need only think that they do...Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
18c. 1974 ADIt's a crime, when you think about how little time we get, that a man should ever be bored. When you are lying on your death bead, I expect you regret those weeks wasted more than your worst mistakes.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
19c. 1974 ADThe Inquisitor waited for silence. "Do you believe in anything?""Not if I can help it. Belief alone is nothing to be proud of, Inquisitor. Belief without evidence is the very hallmark of the savage.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
21c. 1974 ADTrust is like glass. Lovely, but only a fool rests lots of weight on it.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
22c. 1974 ADThey appear somewhat unreliable," he murmured."Unreliable? Nonsense, Superior! Out of luck is all, and we both know how that goes, no? Why, there's not a man of them I wouldn't trust my mother to.""Are you sure?""She's been dead these twenty years. What harm could they do her now?Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
23c. 1974 ADA man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he find entirely beyond sufferanceJoe Abercrombie / quote ↗
24c. 1974 ADIt's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterwards. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough.Joe Abercrombie / quote ↗
