Joe Abercrombie
Joe Abercrombie
Joe Abercrombieis a British fantasy writer and film editor. He is the author of The First Law trilogy and other related works of fantasy. In 2014 he published Half a King, the first book in his new Shattered Sea series, which won the 2015 Locus Award for best Young Adult book...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
men sea rivers
All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain't no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I've learned ... just to stick in the place I'm at. Just to be the man I am.
names mud soil
Names turned over by time, like the plough turning the soil. Bringing up the new while the old were buried in the mud.
believe shadow glory
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.
stupidity luck selfishness
There was no such thing as luck. Luck was a word idiots used to explain the consequences of their own rashness, and selfishness, and stupidity. More often than not bad luck meant bad plans.
men touching stories
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?
given make-the-best-of-it our-family
You don’t pick your family, you take what you’re given and you make the best of it.
eye forget easy
It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.
people taught villain
If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best.
long choices matter
Sometimes it doesn't matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.
war fighting winning
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.
book character thinking
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.
mind possibility states
Armour... is part of a state of mind... in which you admit the possibility... of being hit.
men rings
Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter.
children war crime
Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.