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.

If Glokta had been given the opportunity to torture any one man, any one at all, he would surely have chosen the inventor of steps.

If Glokta had been given the opportunity to shake the hand of any one man, any one at all, he would surely have chosen the inventor of chairs.

You remember the dead as best you can. You say some words for them. Then you carry on, and you hope for better.

She had dark hair, dark skin, a little darker than would generally be thought ideal. He knew that a lady should remain out of the sun whenever possible, but looking at her, he really couldn’t remember why.

You have to learn to love the small things in life, like a hot bath. You have to love the small things,

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

“I’ve settled a few scores in my time, but it only led to more. Vengeance can feel fine, but it’s a luxury. It doesn’t fill your belly, or keep the rain off.

I’m sick of making my own decisions. They’re never the right ones. Ignorance is the sweetest medicine, my father used to say. I don’t want to know.”

real

“Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.”

Why bother? A man should know his limitations. There’s nothing noble in falling on your face. I should know that.

Cheap clothes and expensive windows. If the cloth had been stronger we would have got him. If the window had more lead, we would have got him. Lives hinge on such chances.

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

More people than can be counted—living, dying, working, breeding, climbing one upon the other. Welcome,” and Bayaz spread his arms wide to encompass the monstrous, the beautiful, the endless city, “to civilisation!”

“People are born to their station here. They have commoners, to fight, and farm the land, and do the work. They have gentry, to trade, and build and do the thinking. They have nobility, to own the land and push the others around. They have royalty…” Bayaz glanced at the tin crown “… I forget exactly why.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” “If you say so, but I’m not sure I see it. All those people.” Logen gave a sweaty shiver. “It’s not right. It frightens me.”

“Stands. Seating.” Logen stared vacantly back at him. How could something stand and sit at once?

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say that he needs to piss.

But that was civilisation, so far as Logen could tell. People with nothing better to do, dreaming up ways to make easy things difficult.

the Crown Prince leant across his mother to favour the Princess with some witless banter, then exploded into laughter at his own joke, slapping his knee with merriment.

me fr

If he were King, he mused, he would punish poor conversation with death, or at least a lengthy prison term.

Some men just like to burn, he reckoned.

Repetition—the curse of the old.

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

“Journeys are always pleasant to me! Always! It is the time between them that I find trying.

I am not proud of it. But good men must sometimes do violent things.”

He tried to put himself in Vallimir’s position. He did not really know the pressures the man was under: probably he would rather be in command of soldiers than smiths, probably… it was no use. The man was a shit, and West hated him.

They have no God here.” “Say rather that they have many.” “Many?” “Had you not noticed? Here, each man worships himself.”

“You’ve made some mistakes, but haven’t we all? They’re in the past, and can’t be changed. There’s nothing to be done now except to do better, eh?”

the bloody thing was always looming on the edge of his vision, whenever he stepped out of the door, reminding him the world was full of mysteries he did not understand, seething just below the surface.

Yet here he was, mired in a horrible bog of fear and guilt, lust and confusion, loss and pain. Love. What a curse.

That same question came into his head, over and over, and he still had no answer. Why do I do this? Why?