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

by Joe Abercrombie

‘It’s a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.’

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.

‘They have that most strange and dangerous of qualities,’ said Cosca. ‘They think they’re in the right.’

You treat folk the way you’d want to be treated, and you can’t go far wrong.

‘Few indeed are those who get a choice. We do as we are told. We stand or fall beside those who were born near to us, who look as we do, who speak the same words, and all the while we know as little of the reasons why as does the dust we return to.’