Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3)

by Joe Abercrombie

“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.” —Paul Gauguin

And the more shrivelled the man, the more swollen his pretensions must become. Why do they never realise? Small things only seem smaller in large spaces.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.

It can be a fearsome weapon, patience. One that few men ever learn to use.

When was it exactly that I became… this? By small degrees, I suppose. One act presses hard upon another, on a path we have no choice but to follow, and each time there are reasons. We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then one day we look up and find that we are… this.

People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.

Plans have a way of coming apart when you lean on ’em.”

Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you’ve had him for long enough.

He was gradually starting to realise that the more powerful a man became, the fewer choices he really had.

“Last Argument of Kings” —Inscribed on his cannons by Louis XIV

It can be a terrible curse for a man to get everything he ever dreamed of. If the shining prizes turn out somehow to be empty baubles, he is left without even his dreams for comfort.

Corpses had always been a poor reward for all the effort it took to make them.

Trust. It was a word that only liars used. A word the truthful had no need of.

Courage can come from many places, and be made of many things, and yesterday’s coward can become tomorrow’s hero in an instant if the time is right.

Round and round in circles we go, clutching at successes that we never grasp, endlessly tripping over the same old failures. Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

That’s the trouble with answers. They’re never as exciting as the questions, somehow.

Everything beautiful has a dark side, and some of us must dwell there, so that others can laugh in the light.

The greatest responsibility of a commander was not to command, but to look like he knew how to.

That’s the trouble with ambition. It’s easy to forget, when you’re always looking upwards, that the only way down from the dizzy heights is a long drop.

“Punishment doesn’t always come to the guilty.”

“Does the devil know he is a devil?” —Elizabeth Madox Roberts