The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)

by Joe Abercrombie

Once you’ve got a task to do, it’s better to do it than to live with the fear of it.

“Well you’ve outdone yourself this time, Glokta, you mad cripple! When the Mercers find out about this they’ll have you flayed!” “I’ve tried flaying, it tickles.”

Glokta <3

You carry on. That’s what he’d always done. That’s the task that comes with surviving, whether you deserve to live or not. You remember the dead as best you can. You say some words for them. Then you carry on, and you hope for better.

Union. Jezal had often observed that the ever so slightly stupid will act more stupidly in clever company.

These are dangerous times alright, and yet danger and opportunity often walk hand in hand.”

But some things have to be done. It’s better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.

“But a sword… a sword has a voice.” “Eh?” “Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy’s ear.” He wrapped his fingers tightly round the grip. “A

“You have to have fear to have courage,” he said.

Fear is a good friend to the hunted, it’s kept me alive this long. The dead are fearless, and I don’t care to join them.

There are few ills a good cup of tea won’t help with.” Logen pressed a lump of chagga into the bowl of his pipe. “How about an axe in the head?”

“History is littered with dead good men.”

The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government.

Some things have to be done. It’s better to do them than to live with the fear of them. That’s what my father used to tell me.”

numbskull.

“I thought you were in hell, Black Dow, you bastard!” “So did I, but I was only north o’ the mountains.

magic. It’s a fine line indeed, between magic and trickery,

“No one cares about the past any more,” he whispered. “They don’t see that you can’t have a future without a past.”

“Treat a man like a dog and sooner or later he’ll bite you, it’s a simple fact.

But good men must sometimes do violent things.”

“The First Law is a paradox. All magic comes from the Other Side, even ours. Whenever you change a thing you touch the world below, whenever you make a thing you borrow from the Other Side, and there is always a cost.”

“Walk in God’s footsteps, Ferro Maljinn.” “Huh. They have no God here.”

Pain was the fuel that made the fires burn. Something moved in front of him.