The Heroes (First Law World, #5)

by Joe Abercrombie

Strange thing, that – the fewer years you have to lose the more you fear the losing of ’em. Maybe a man just gets a stock of courage when he’s born, and wears it down with each scrape he gets into.

Maybe there are only so many faces in the world. You get old enough, you start seeing ’em used again.

Lending considerable support to the maxim that men always hate in others what is most hateful in themselves.

Savour the little moments, son, that’s my advice. They’re what life is. All the things that happen while you’re waiting for something else.

When you’re planning what to do, always think of doing nothing first, see where that gets you.

‘Once a man’s in the ground he’s just mud. Mud and stories. And the stories and the men don’t often have much in common.’

War’s ninety-nine parts boredom and, now and then, one part arse-opening terror.

Perhaps that was the moment you grew up, when you learned your parents were just as fallible as everyone else.

‘Patience is as fearsome a weapon as rage. More so, in fact, ’cause fewer men have it.’

Some men are made for doing violence. Some are meant for planning it. Then there are a special few whose talent is for taking the credit.

I got no shortage of men can kick a door down. I can use a couple who’ll think to try the handle once in a while.’

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

Being in charge can seem like a thing iron-forged, but in the end it’s just an idea everyone agrees to.

there’s no music so sweet as an enemy’s despair.

‘Yah!’ shrieked Yolk as he ran up, a war cry that could hardly have made a duck nervous.