Inquisitor Larsen'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

It's a crime, when you think about how little time we get, that a man should ever be bored. When you are lying on your death bead, I expect you regret those weeks wasted more than your worst mistakes.

— Joe Abercrombie

It's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterward. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough.

— Joe Abercrombie

It was a look that gave her a tingle, all right, but not in a good way. In that look she saw her silly bloody hopes as twisted and broken as she’d left that Lowlander’s arm, and it was no one’s fault but her own. She shouldn’t have let herself hope, but hopes are like weeds: however often you root them out they keep on springing up.

— Joe Abercrombie

It was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotion

— Joe Abercrombie

It was what you gave out that made a man, not what you got back.

— Joe Abercrombie

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.

— Joe Abercrombie

I want a chance to do it all again. To do it… right.

— Joe Abercrombie

Larsen 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

Life's a queue of small irritations with the Last Door at the end.

— Joe Abercrombie