Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)

by Joe Abercrombie

It’s an easy thing to make a man a carcass. He knew a thousand ways to do it. But once you’ve done it, there’s no going back. One minute he’s a man, all full up with hopes, and thoughts, and dreams. A man with friends, and family, and a place where he’s from. Next minute he’s mud.

‘One should learn the lessons of history. The mistakes of the past need only be made once.’

Ah, the flower of the Union’s young nobility. The sense of honour is almost palpable. Or did someone fart?

‘I would have thought your pain would give you empathy.’ ‘Empathy? What’s that?’ Glokta winced as he rubbed at his aching leg. ‘It’s a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.’

‘A man who doesn’t want opinions should keep his own mouth shut.’ The apprentice nodded his dripping head at Ninefingers’ back. ‘That there is the Bloody-Nine, the most feared man in the North. He’s killed more men than the plague.’

‘Fearlessness is a fool’s boast, to my mind. The only men with no fear in them are the dead, or the soon to be dead, maybe. Fear teaches you caution, and respect for your enemy, and to avoid sharp edges used in anger. All good things in their place, believe me. Fear can bring you out alive, and that’s the very best anyone can hope for from any fight. Every man who’s worth a damn feels fear. It’s the use you make of it that counts.’

‘Then you’ve got the chance to do better next time.’ ‘Next time?’ ‘Course. Doing better next time. That’s what life is.’

‘Suffering is what gives a man strength, my boy, just as the steel most hammered turns out the hardest.’

‘Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us.

Selfishness belongs to children, and to halfwits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one’s own troubles. In order to act like...

‘Nothing to it. You treat folk the way you’d want to be treated, and you can’t go far wrong.

Men must sometimes do what they do not like if they are to be remembered. It is through struggle, not ease, that fame and honour are won. It is through conflict, not peace, that wealth and power are gained.

There was no such thing as luck. Luck was a word idiots used to explain the consequences of their own rashness, and selfishness, and stupidity. More often than not bad luck meant bad plans.

Hundreds of ’em, in pits for a dozen each. It was a bad day for men, all in all, and a good one for the ground. Always the way, after a battle. Only the ground wins.