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.

the ever so slightly stupid will act more stupidly in clever company.

You have to learn to love the small things in life, like a hot bath. You have to love the small things, when you’ve nothing else.

Hard words are for fools and cowards.

If you mean to kill, you’re better getting right to it than talking about it. Talk only makes the other man ready, and that’s the last thing you want.

That’s the trouble with good legs, you tend to run around too much. If you have trouble moving, on the other hand, you don’t move until you damn well know it’s time.

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

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.

The tree is only as strong as its root, and knowledge is the root of power.”

The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know. Still, the struggle itself is worthwhile.

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

A man is born in his place and is expected to stay there. We must seem to be from a high place indeed, if we are to be taken seriously.

you can’t have a future without a past.”