Josh > Josh's Quotes

“You can't help being young, but it's past time that you stopped being stupid.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

“When you don't know everything that you could know, it's a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

“And if I died, at least I died
For thee! for thee”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Stories and Poems

“there is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

“How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow. There can never be a time when you forget them, when you are not, in your heart, questing after something you cannot have, something you cannot even properly imagine, the lack of which will spoil your sleep and your day and your life, until you close your eyes for the final time, until your loved ones give you poison and sell you to anatomy, and even then you will die with a hole inside you, and you will wail and curse at a life ill-lived.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.” Chinese Proverb”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“Difficult" and "impossible" are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“You have no idea the power generated each time somebody is told a story. When a conscious, sentient mind willingly ignores what is real, what is fact, and instead chooses to invest in people and places that never existed...It's magnificent.”
― Derek Landy, The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

“And I don't need to look clever. I am clever. The fact that I look clever is merely a bonus.”
― Derek Landy, The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

“Any man can fart in a closed room and say that he commands the wind”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“My disinterest in your bullshit is so tangible you could make bricks out of it”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“Memory is all we are. Moments and feelings, captured in amber, strung on filaments of reason. Take a man’s memories and you take all of him. Chip away a memory at a time and you destroy him as surely as if you hammered nail after nail through his skull.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“A fool may scrawl on a slate and if no one has the wit to wipe it clean for a thousand years, the scrawl becomes the wisdom of ages.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

“Good ideas don’t stand a chance against good bureaucracy.”
― Hiroshi Sakurazaka, All You Need Is Kill

“The human body is a funny machine. When you want to move something - say, your arm - the brain actually sends two signals at the same time: "More power!" and "Less power!" The operating system that runs the body automatically holds some power back to avoid overexerting and tearing itself apart. Not all machines have that built - in safety feature. You can point a car at a wall, slam the accelerator to the floor, and the car will crush itself against the wall until the engine is destroyed or runs out of gas.
Martial arts use every scrap of strength the body has at its disposal. In martial arts training, you punch and shout at the same time. Your "Shout louder!" command helps to override the "Less power!" command. With practice, you can throttle the amount of power your body holds back. In essence, you're learning to channel
the body's power to destroy itself.”
― Hiroshi Sakurazaka, All You Need Is Kill

“Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“Has it ever occured to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes. But a sword...a sword has a voice.
Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear. A gentle word. A word of caution. Do you hear it?
Now, compare it to the sword half drawn. It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?
Now compare it to the sword full drawn. It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“Something dug into the Bloody-Nine's back, but there was no pain. It was a sign. A message in a secret tongue, that only he could understand. It told him where the next dead man was standing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“I’m trying to put things in the best light, but a turd’s a turd, whatever light it’s in!”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“Stand aside, and try not to catch fire if I shed sparks of genius.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don't need to justify it to anyone... not even to ourselves.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“If you're going to live here, staying civil is as much a duty as sitting the steps or washing dishes. Now, while I bask in the glow of another moral sermon delivered with the precision of a master fencer, hold your applause and let's get back to last night.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“I don’t want to spend the rest of the day interrupting your questions, so I’m going to temporarily forget how to make words come out of my mouth.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves