“Inquisitor Lorsen's thin lip curled. "There is truly nothing in you of what separates man from animal, is there? You are bereft of conscience. An utter absence of morality. You have no principle beyond the selfish."Cosca's face hardened as he leaned forwards. "Perhaps when you have faced as many disappointments and suffered as many betrayals as I, you will see it - there is no principle beyond the selfish, Inquisitor, and men are animals. Conscience is a burden we choose to bear. Morality is the lie we tell ourselves to make its bearing easier. There have been many times in my life when I have wished it was not so. But it is so.”
Joe Abercrombie“The 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, Red Country“Men are brittle, I reckon. They don't bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them.”
Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold“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.”
Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold“Some men you stick to right off. But it's those that take time to stick that stick longest.”
Joe Abercrombie“You have to be grateful for the small things, when any minute might be your last.”
Joe Abercrombie“it was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotion”
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 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, Before They Are Hanged