Philipp > Philipp's Quotes

“Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged

“Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

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

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

“Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

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

“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

“I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“I’ve fought in three campaigns,” he began. “In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. I’ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I’ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I’ve known little else. I’ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that’s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper.

“I’ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. I’ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I’ve run away myself more than once. I’ve pissed myself with fear. I’ve begged for my life. I’ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.”

He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. “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, The Blade Itself

“First it is done to us, then we do it to others, then we order it done. Such is the way of things”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“Life is a series of things we would rather not do.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“say one thing for Logen Ninefinger, say he's a cunt.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings

“Violence is what people do when they run out of good ideas.”
― James S.A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate

“There's a right thing to do," Holden said.
"You don't have a right thing, friend," Miller said. "You've got a whole plateful of maybe a little less wrong.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War

“They’re all fucking men,” she said. “Excuse me?” Soren said. “The generals. They’re all fucking men.” “I thought Souther was the only—” “I don’t mean that they all fuck men. I mean they’re all men, the fuckers. How long has it been since a woman was in charge of the armed forces? Not since I came here. So instead, we wind up with another example of what happens to policy when there’s too much testosterone in the room.”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban's War

“I thought if you told people facts, they'd draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don't run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people.”
― James S.A. Corey, Babylon’s Ashes

“I’m telling you that you should doubt—as I do my own beliefs. The day on which you decide not to question what you believe, is the day that you start making excuses for why you believe it.”
― James Islington, An Echo of Things to Come

“The people with whom we are friends should never affect our morality;rather, our morality should affect with whom we are friends.”
― James Islington, An Echo of Things to Come

“The lesser of two evils, or the greater good. Get a good man to utter either of those phrases, and there is no one more eager to begin perpetrating evil.”
― James Islington, An Echo of Things to Come