1
The Inquisitor waited for silence. "Do you believe in anything?"" Not if I can help it. Belief alone is nothing to be proud of, Inquisitor. Belief without evidence is the very hallmark of the savage.Joe Abercrombie
2
Belief without evidence is the very hallmark of the savage.Joe Abercrombie
3
Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods.Joe Abercrombie
4
But you know what they say - old milk turns sour but old scores just get sweeter.Joe Abercrombie
5
You stick a bunch of drunken murderers together, ain't long before some turn to thieving, then to lying, then to bad language, and pretty soon to sobriety, raising families and making an honest living.Joe Abercrombie
6
Lorsen shook his head in amazement. 'You truly are disgusting.'' I would be the last to disagree, but you fail to see that you are worse. No man capable of greater evil than the one who thinks himself in the right. No purpose more evil than the higher purpose. I freely admit I am a villain. That's why you hired me. But I am no hypocrite.Joe Abercrombie
7
Inquisitor Lorsen's thin lip curled. "There is truly nothing in you of what separates man from animal, is there? You are bereft of conscience. An utter absence of morality. You have no principle beyond the selfish." Cosca's face hardened as he leaned forwards. "Perhaps when you have faced as many disappointments and suffered as many betrayals as I, you will see it - there is no principle beyond the selfish, Inquisitor, and men are animals. Conscience is a burden we choose to bear. Morality is the lie we tell ourselves to make its bearing easier. There have been many times in my life when I have wished it was not so. But it is so.Joe Abercrombie
8
One day you're something, so promising and full o' dares, so big the world's too small a place to hold you. Then, 'fore you know it, you're old, and you realise all them things you had in mind you'll never get to. All them doors you felt too big to fit through have already shut. Only one left open and it leads to nothing but nothing.Joe Abercrombie
9
Strange, how the best moments of our lives we scarcely notice except in looking back.Joe Abercrombie
10
He blamed every fucker available excepting, of course, the one who was actually to blame, the one sitting in his saddle and getting colder, hungrier, and more lost with every unpleasant moment. ‘Shit! ’ he roared at nothing.Joe Abercrombie