Alex

“Men can have all manner of deeply held beliefs about the world in general that they find most inconvenient when called upon to apply to their own lives. Few people let morality get in the way of expediency. Or even convenience. A man who truly believes in a thing beyond the point where it costs him is a rare and dangerous thing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold

“Go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut,” murmured Paul Lazzaro in his azure nest. “Go take a flying fuck at the moon”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“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, Red Country

“Cosca smiled up at the dragon, hands on hips. ‘It certainly is a remarkable curiosity. A magnificent relic. But against what is already boiling across the plains? The legion of the dumb? The merchants and farmers and makers of trifles and filers of papers? The infinite tide of greedy little people?’ He waved his hat towards the dragon. ‘Such things as this are worthless as a cow against a swarm of ants. There will be no place in the world to come for the magical, the mysterious, the strange. They will come to your sacred places and build . . . tailors’ shops. And dry-goods emporia. And lawyers’ offices. They will make of them bland copies of everywhere else.’ The old mercenary scratched thoughtfully at his rashy neck. ‘You can wish it were not so. I wish it were not so. But it is so. I tire of lost causes. The time of men like me is passing. The time of men like you?’ He wiped a little blood from under his fingernails. ‘So long passed it might as well have never been.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Red Country