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

by Joe Abercrombie

‘Friends? In my experience, a friend is merely an acquaintance who has yet to betray you.

‘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.’

You can harp on the past all you please, Dow, like some old woman upset cause her tits used to stay up by themselves, or you can shut your fucking hole and help me get on with things.’

‘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.’

Those with the least always lose the most in war.

‘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. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. 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 a king, one need only treat everyone else like one.’

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

‘Honour, eh? What the hell is that anyway? Every man thinks it’s something different. You can’t drink it. You can’t fuck it. The more of it you have the less good it does you, and if you’ve got none at all you don’t miss it.’ He shook his head. ‘But some men think it’s the best thing in the world.’

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.

Only friends get left behind. Enemies are always at your heels.