A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness, #1)

by Joe Abercrombie

“Guess not. Just, in the songs, it’s a thing witches and magi and deep-wise folk used to see into the fog of what comes. Not a thing that makes idiots fall down and shit themselves.”

“My da used to say times of peace are when the wise prepare for violence.”

There was something ever so slightly different in the way Gorst took his mark, the way he twisted his feet into the faintly creaking boards, the way he worked his great shoulders and gripped his notched steels. His flat face hardly showed emotion, but it was as if a door had opened a chink, and beyond it Savine glimpsed something monstrous.

It is easy to smile at the bull you know is chained. When you realise of a sudden the chain is off, and its horns towards you, and its hoof scraping at the dust, the bull looks an entirely different animal.

“Actual violence quite another. Few of us are made for it. It is healthy to be disabused of our self-deceptions every now and then, even if it hurts.”

But there’s a time when doubts might do some good. A time to chew over the risks and the consequences. Then a moment passes. A moment you might not even notice. Then it’s too late, and you’ve got to commit, and give it everything with no backward glances.

The terrible justice of the ground. Sooner or later, everyone who jumps must meet it.

The goal of government, you see,” and the Arch Lector prodded at the air with his bony forefinger, “is to load the unhappiness onto those least able to make you suffer for it.”

People liked to think of beauty as some natural gift, but Savine firmly believed that just about anyone could be beautiful, if they worked hard at it and spent enough money. It was merely a question of emphasising the good, disguising the bad and painfully squeezing the average into the most impressive configuration. Very much like business, really.