The Great Leveller Quotes

“Shit at least makes flowers grow. Honour isn’t even that useful.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“have become myself . . . an empty purse.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“What do we leave behind but things not done, not said, not finished? Empty clothes, empty rooms, empty spaces in the ones who knew us?”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Patience is the parent of success,”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Live long enough, you see everything ruined.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“That’s what courage is. Taking your disappointments and your failures, your guilt and your shame, all the wounds received and inflicted, and sinking them in the past.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Dignity ain’t much use to the living, it’s none to the dead.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Change, Friendly . . . change is a funny thing. Sometimes men change for the better. Sometimes men change for the worse. And often, very often, given time and opportunity . . .’ He waved his flask around for a moment, then shrugged. ‘They change back.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Strange, that however tough one’s skin becomes in later life, the wounds of youth never close.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“swear, the more you give a man, the more he demands, and the less happy he becomes. No one ever appreciates what he gets for nothing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Desperation bakes heroes from the most rotten flour,”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Dignity wasn’t much help to the living, it was none to the dead.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“He would’ve liked his axe to hand, but hoping for a thing often brought on the opposite.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Dark times are the best for dark business,”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“A man sleeps through most of his life, even when awake. You get so little time, yet still you spend it utterly oblivious. Angry, frustrated, fixated on meaningless nothings. That drawer does not close flush with the front of my desk. What cards does my opponent hold, and how much money can I win from him? I wish I were taller. What will I have for dinner, for I am not fond of parsnips?”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“The most heroic deaths of all were the pointless ones,”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“You start some trouble, it’s best to start it and finish it all at once.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“My old mentor Sazine once told me you should laugh every moment you live, for you’ll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“So it always is with mercenaries. Easily hired, even more easily discharged and never missed once they are gone.’ Friendly”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“You put a mask on a person, something weird happens. Changes the way they act along with the way they look. Sometimes they don’t seem like people at all no more, but something else.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“When God means to punish a man, the Kantic scriptures say, he sends him stupid friends, and clever enemies.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Money is a different thing to every man, Bialoveld wrote, but always a good thing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“Nice things, morals, but prone to chafe at times like this.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller

“But being a bastard was crime and punishment both.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Great Leveller