651 Quotes by Joe Abercrombie

Chose? If you believe that I chose any part of the pitiful shadow of a life you see before you, you are very much mistaken. I chose glory and success. The box did not contain what was written on the lid.

Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be. What is my story now, I wonder?

You don’t pick your family, you take what you’re given and you make the best of it.

It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.

If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best.

I've made peace with myself. Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win. Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting.

I think the further away you get from completing a book, the more responses you see to it from readers, the more your own tastes and opinions shift and the more you start to see things you could have written differently in the detail, or done differently on the broader scale of plot and character.

Only it’s just the same. In fact, do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it’s worse. There aren’t many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in a war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they’ll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work There’s no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more.

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. Starting again. Damning yesterday and facing tomorrow with your head held high. Times change. It's those that see it coming, and plan for it, and change themselves to suit, that prosper.