The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3)

by Scott Lynch

‘Nonsense. You’ll feel right at home. What is government but theft by consent?

‘Nobody admires anyone else without qualification. If they do they’re after an image, not a person.’

‘I don’t expect life to make sense,’ he said after a few moments, ‘but it would certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.’

‘When the sky’s falling, I take shelter under bullshit.

‘What’s the n-never-fail universal apology?’ ‘“I was badly misinformed, I deeply regret the error, go fuck yourself with this bag of money.”

‘Yeah, but if I don’t start my nervous pacing now, I’ll never have it all done in time.’

‘Words are dead until you give them a context,’

‘But what you know

is how to tell the whole world to fuck off.

life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone’s got a place in the queue, you can’t get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that the line is actually circular.’

‘You’re a difficult woman, Sabetha. But then, difficult women are the only ones worth falling in love with.’

‘Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don’t need to justify it to anyone . . . not even to ourselves.