How could a man whose business has been concealment find it impossible to hide his emotions in this room? But Glokta knew how. It’s hard to stay calm when you’re terrified, helpless, alone, at the mercy of men with no mercy at all. Who could know that better than me?

The old order crumbles. Loyalty, duty, pride, honour. Notions that have fallen far from fashion. What has replaced them?’ He glanced over his shoulder for a moment, and his lip curled. ‘Greed. Merchants have become the new power in the land. Bankers, shopkeepers, salesmen. Little men, with little minds and little ambitions. Men whose only loyalty is to themselves, whose only duty is to their own purses, whose only pride is in swindling their betters, whose only honour is weighed out in silver coin.’ No need to ask 

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse’

It may be a union in name, but they fight each other tooth and nail. The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that. The casualties are many.

All in all, things have worked out very nicely, and you are to be congratulated on your part in it. A job well done.

Not the eyes of an idiot. He may look an ape, but he doesn’t talk like one. He thinks before he speaks, then says no more than he has to. This is a dangerous man.

A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron.

A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time, and had never got anywhere.

One kiss, that was all. One kiss, and his resolve had leaked away like piss from a broken chamber pot. He stared around, suddenly guilty, confused, and scared. What had he done here?

Jezal was snarling like a dog, teeth bared, the muscles of his face a rigid mask. Gorst’s heavy features showed little sign of effort. He looked like a man having a piss: involved in a mundane and faintly distasteful task that must simply be done with as quickly as possible.

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.

better to act with too much force than too little. Better to be held in fear, than in contempt.

Ah, the mercenary’s code. Some men will do anything for money. Most men will do anything for enough.

sitting in his saddle like a King sits on his throne, as though being born with a good-shaped face was an achievement to be endlessly proud.

He sat in his saddle slumped over like some great sack of rice.

Martyrdom suits you, but you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t join in.

Knowledge is so often the antidote to fear. But not here. Not now.

You are radiant, of course, but I am not quite blinded

That is advice. Advice born of bitter experience. I would prefer it if you did not disappear quite yet.

A man who doesn’t want opinions should keep his own mouth shut.

Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. Selfishness belongs to children, and to halfwits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one’s own troubles. In order to act like a king, one need only treat everyone else like one.

There was no such thing as luck. Luck was a word idiot used to explain the consequences of their own rashness, and selfishness, and stupidity. More often than not bad luck meant bad plans.

War is harshest on the brave.

We are leaders. War is what happens when we fail.

Cleverness is no guarantee of sensible behaviour.

When was it exactly that I became… this? By small degrees, I suppose. One act presses hard upon another, on a path we have no choice but to follow, and each time there are reasons. We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then one day we look up and find that we are… this.

Do you have any notion of how tired I am? Of how much I have to do? The agony of getting out of bed each morning leaves me a broken man before the day even begins, and the present moment is an exceptionally stressful one. It is, therefore, a matter of the most supreme indifference to me whether you can walk for the rest of your life, whether you can see for the rest of your life, whether you can hold your shit in for the rest of your intensely short, intensely painful life. Do you understand?

Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.

achieving power, one should immediately distance oneself from all allies. They will feel they own your victory, and no rewards will ever satisfy them. You should elevate your enemies instead. They will gush over small tokens, knowing they do not deserve them.

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

The only difference between war and murder is the number of the dead.

I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes.’ Cosca stretched his chin up and scratched at his scabby neck. ‘The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.

If he was to die, he would die a man, like any other. He had been given so many advantages, he realised now. Far more than most men could ever dream of. So many chances to do good, and he had done nothing besides whine and think of himself. Now it was too late. ‘I’ve lived my life leaning on others. Hiding behind them. Climbing on their shoulders. Not this time.

But why would you refuse me? I offer you the chance to help me forge a new age.’ To bury my hands to the elbow in your dirty work. ‘To be a great man. The very greatest of men.’ To bestride the Closed Council like a crippled colossus. ‘To leave your likeness set in stone on the Kingsway.’ Where its hideousness can make the children cry. Once they clear away the rubble and the corpses, of course. ‘To shape the course of a nation.’ ‘Under your direction.’ ‘Naturally. Nothing is free, you know that.

If I have crossed a line it is a line of scale only.

Power makes all things right.

I deal in the momentous. I cannot concern myself with the fate of every peasant. Neither can you. I have tried to teach you this, but it seems you have failed to learn the lesson.

Government is tyranny. At its best, it is dressed in pretty colours.

Please. Friends are people one pretends to like in order to make life bearable. Men like us have no need of such indulgences. It is our enemies by which we are measured.

Shit at least makes flowers grow. Honour isn’t even that useful.

Mercy and cowardice were the same. No one was giving prizes for good behaviour. Not here, not in the North, not anywhere. You want a thing, you have to take it, and the greatest man is the one that snatches most. Maybe it would’ve been nice if life was another way. But it was how it was.

‘Beautiful,’ Cosca lied. To the starving man, bread is beautiful. To the homeless man, a roof is beautiful. To the drunkard, wine is beautiful. Only those who want for nothing else need find beauty in a lump of rock.

‘Revenge. If you could even get it, what good would it do you? All this expenditure of effort, pain, treasure, blood, for what? Who is ever left better off for it?’ ‘Not the avenged dead, certainly. They rot on, regardless. Not those who are avenged upon, of course. Corpses all. And what of the ones who take vengeance, what of them? Do they sleep easier, do you suppose, once they have heaped murder on murder? Sown the bloody seeds of a hundred other retributions?

No one is quicker to forgive a handsome man than I, but your brother was a vindictive coward. A charming, greedy, ruthless, spineless parasite. A man of the very lowest character imaginable. The only thing that lifted him from utter worthlessness, and utter inconsequence, was you.

have you had a hand in? How much destruction? You are a bandit! A glorified profiteer! You are a maggot grown fat on the rotting corpse of Styria!

To let my personal feelings reduce the weight of my purse would be an act of criminal unprofessionalism.

‘I’d shed no tears over her corpse, that’s true. The man who put a blade in her could have my gratitude and more besides. But that doesn’t make me a liar.

You think a man can turn on me? Betray me? Give my chair to another for a few pieces of silver, then smile and be my friend? You mistake me, Andiche. Fatally. I may make men laugh, but I’m no clown.

a man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he finds entirely beyond sufferance.

in my long experience, when people begin to talk prices, the deal is already done.

love and hate have just a knife’s edge between ’em.

Bravery is the dead man’s virtue,”’ Monza muttered. ‘“The wise commander never trusts it.

always surprised by how treacherous men could be over trifles, yet how loyal they could be when their lives were forfeit.

When you build your life around only one thing, love only one person, dream only one dream, you risk losing everything at a stroke. You built your life around your brother. I built mine around a crown.

wars are hard enough work without people fighting in the middle of ’em.

When you’re planning what to do, always think of doing nothing first, see where that gets you.

I think your close friendship with the king has caused you to be promoted far beyond the rank at which you were most effective. I think you would have made an excellent lieutenant, a passable captain, a mediocre major and a dismal colonel, but as a general you are a liability. I think you know this, and have no confidence, which makes you behave, paradoxically, as if you have far too much. I think you make decisions with little thought, abandon some with none and stick furiously to others against all argument, thinking that to change your mind would be to show weakness. I think you fuss with details better left to subordinates, fearing to tackle the larger issues, and that makes your subordinates smother you with decisions on every trifle, which you then bungle. I think you are a decent, honest, courageous man. And I think you are a fool.

he thrived on their hatred like a flower on shit.

it’d be a damn fool who risked his life for what he could get just by the asking.

If you can’t make your enemies trust you, you can at least make them mistrust each other.

He was just sowing seeds. Time would bring the harvest. If he lived long enough to swing the scythe.

used to think I had all the answers myself, in my younger days. I maintain a guilty sympathy with those who still labour under the illusion.

‘One day I’ll sit in Skarling’s Chair,’ Calder whispered into the darkness. ‘And I’ll make you eat my shit, and you’ll tell me nothing ever tasted so sweet.

“Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter. So when you talk, bring your sword.”

‘It’s not easy, is it? Being a great man’s son. You’d have thought it would come with all kinds of advantages – with borrowed admiration, and respect. But it’s only as easy as it is for the seeds of a great tree, trying to grow in its choking shadow. Not many make it to the sunlight for themselves.’

Dropping into his pointless grave like a turd into a sewer, and just as quickly forgotten.

‘The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.’

‘Remember this, though. People love heroes, but new ones can always be found. With one finger of one hand, I make you. With one finger of one hand …’ He put his finger under her chin and pushed it up, sending a stab of pain through her stiff neck. ‘I can unmake you.’

One of the best. Honest, brave, loyal to a fault. They were well matched. Optimist and pessimist, dreamer and cynic. And what is love anyway, but finding someone who suits you? Someone who makes up for your shortcomings? Someone you can work with. Work on.

The last time we spoke was a humbling experience for me. Don’t worry, though, I’ve had many others since. You won’t find a more humbled man anywhere.’

shrugged. ‘I won’t take you for a fool and say yes. But I know where my best interest lies and it’s at your heels. I’d also point out loyalty’s a dangerous foundation. Tends to wash away in a storm. Self-interest stands in any weather.’

You have been greatly missed. During your absence, your letters have been a constant comfort and delight. For any wrong on your part, I long ago forgave you. For any wrong on mine, I earnestly hope that you can do the same.

men do all manner of things in the heat of the moment that turn out, on sober reflection, to be not especially sensible.’

In the lunatic asylum, he supposed, the one sane man looks mad.

‘Courage lies in bearing the costs. We all have our regrets, but not all of us can afford to be crippled by them. Sometimes it takes small crimes to prevent bigger ones. Sometimes the lesser evil is the greater good. A man of principle must make hard choices and suffer the consequences. Or you could sit and cry over how unfair it all is.’

‘Prayer is arrogance,’ intoned Jubair. ‘The hope of man to change the will of God. But God’s plan is set and His words already spoken.’

rebellion costs money. Food, clothes, weapons, shelter. Fanatics still need what the rest of us need. A little less of it, since they have their high ideals to nourish them, but the point stands. Follow the money, find the leaders

‘I understand. Someone stole my children, there’d be nowhere in the Circle of the World for those bastards to run to. But don’t make me your enemy when I can every bit as easily be your friend.

those kinds of people like laws. They don’t like lawyers much, but they consider them a necessary evil. And so do

a man can’t wander through life thinking no further ahead than the end of his cock!’

A degree of slipperiness, and indeed of lying, is a positive boon in a notary.

You pick a path, don’t you?’ Savian started drawing the string on the other flatbow. ‘And you think it’s just for tomorrow. Then thirty years on you look back and see you picked your path for life. If you’d known it then, you’d maybe have thought more carefully.’

the man who knows fear every day becomes easy in its company. The man who knows not fear, how shall he face this awful stranger?

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.

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.