Scott Lynch Quotes

Good. Well. Shit." Locke rubbed his gloved hands together. "I guess that's that. I'm all out of rhetorical flourishes.

A voice called out, cold as chloroform and old shame.

After all, poison is only contagious at dinner parties.

Hardships are arbitrary, Locke. You never know which particular quality in yourself or a fellow is going to get you past them.

The only person who gets away with Locke Lamora games - " " - is Locke Lamora -

When the sky's falling, I take shelter under bullshit.

Twenty's good and proper. While Locke gestured for Calo and Galdo to help him set

You're my favorite complication.

My, you are in a sad state. You believe you've been poisoned?" "No," said Locke with a cough. "I fell down some fucking stairs. What's it look like?

It smelled something like a keg of bad beer overturned in a mortician's storage room on a hot summer's day.

It's easy to prescribe remedies for our own weaknesses when they're comfortably ensconced in other people. What

Beer now,bitch later.

When you don't know everything that you could know, it's a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.

Ah," said Jean, "but when a woman has your heart, she doesn't have poor moods. Only interesting moods ... and more interesting moods.

I didn't promise you shit. My dead friends, on the other hand
I made them certain promises I intend to keep.

That sounds dangerous,'said Jean.
'For anyone else, maybe.For Gentlemen Bastards,we,it;s just what we do.'
'We?'
'We.

Oh gods, Jean. Take a false name wherever we end up. Tavrin Callas is good. Let the bastard pop up all over the place.

You know who else thought lightly of them, once? The Falconer.

So, uh, just to be clear," said Calo, "none of us are going to be fighting Jean?" "Not unless you're inconceivably stupid.

I'm surprised you agreed to let me pour the wine.

Stand aside, and try not to catch fire if I shed sparks of genius.

I'm just... enjoying the floor. It was kind enough to catch me when I fell.

To us - richer and cleverer than everyone else!

The best disguises were those that were poured out of the heart rather than painted on the face.

If what Locke is doing were larking about, corpses could get jobs as acrobats.

Come, then! Face Ravelle! The gods have sent your doom, motherfuckers!

Live snakes?' said one of the scribes. 'You mean-'
'Yeah,' said Locke. 'They've got scales, they slither around - snakes. Keep up.

Nice bird, asshole!

Bearded peasant goes in one end of an alley, clean-shaven gentleman comes out the other? Really?" "It's a classic!

I mean, it's not calling me 'Locke.' It knows my real name.

I can neither confirm nor deny you are a sneaky, sneaky bitch.

You'd have to take your shoes and breeches off to count to twenty-one!

Liquor does this? Even after you're sober?" "A cruel joke, isn't it? The gods put a price tag on everything, it seems.

We have a new problem, fresh from the oven and hot as hell.

Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks.

All apologies for getting most of your fortune buried under shit. I hope we can all still be friends.

As Chains had once said, feeling like you wanted desperately to die was fine evidence that you had yet to do so.

This man is my boatswain.

I don't expect life to make sense," he said after a few moments, "but it could certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.

I more proudly take a speck from a man with empty pockets," said Sabetha, "than riches from a man whose purse stays heavy.

No, Mistress of Doubts, I've brought you here to this secluded corner of the city for the nefarious purpose of cooking your dinner myself.

If the whole things goes to shit, just remember to throw yourself down the damn waterfall."
"I'll cover your back, the sharp and bloody way.

Endure for another day, Mister Tannen, and you'll have all the foul black misuse of water you can drink.

What good's slacking all the time if the ship comes apart beneath you while you sleep?

My name's Jean Tannen, and I'm the ambush.

Maybe the one real advantage to getting older is that you have the time to pull your head a little bit farther out of your ass.

We don't see the life after life as it truly is, because in our eyes it conforms to our mechanics of nature.

How very comforting. If reassurances could dull pain, nobody would ever go to the trouble of pressing

Gods, when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another?

So that makes us robbers of robbers," said Bug, "who pretend to be robbers working for a robber of other robbers.

Cold walls do not a prison make, nor iron bands a bondsman.

You write?" "Why, all the time," said Locke, "except of course when I'm wrong.

Once a Big Lie was let out in the world, it seemed to grow on its own and needed little tending or worry to bend to the situation.

If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. Chinese Proverb

And for all our sakes, tame that mess on top of your head. Use fire and a poleaxe if you have to.

This is what a command is. Staring consequences in the eye and pretending not to flinch.

The world is cruel enough without our compounding it;

It was easy to laugh at such conceits in full daylight. But night had a way of lending weight to phantasms.

You know who waxes philosophical about the tiniest weaknesses of enemies? The powerless.

I think piracy is a bit like drinking. You want to stay out all night doing it, you pay the price the next day.

The sky was a fading red and nothing remained of the day save for a line of molten gold slowly lowering on the western horizon.

I want you to use your misplaced acorn for a brain before the squirrel comes looking for it again.

And you're the son of his youngest. He has no other children. Oh, your father's dead, by the way. Fell off a horse two years ago.'
'Good to know.

You're a difficult woman, Sabetha. But then, difficult women are the only ones worth falling in love with.

Find your happy faces, Gentlefucker Bastards, it's a bright new day and we get to start it EARLY!

I sometimes think that 'friend' is just a word I use for all the people I haven't murdered yet.

Sweat, scalded meat, puke, blood, smoke and a dozen kinds of bad ale and wine: the bouquet of civilized nightlife

You're one third bad intentions, one third pure avarice, and one eighth sawdust. What's left, I'll credit, must be brains.

Not everything that's inevitable is regrettable.

Congratulations! We're reverse burglars, here to give you fifty gold solari!

Sad day, my loves, a proper tragedy. But when the milk's gone bad you might as well look forward to cheese, hmm?

The ghouls leered at her, unbreathing, their flesh crisply necrotic like rice paper pressed over old oozing wounds.

In the glass burrow beneath their feet, the flames began to rise. First the flames, and then the screams

Her eyes [were] like the sudden plunge to blue depths beyond a continental shelf.

A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine on command, the world mutters darkly about her moods.

But you didn't die."
"Clever lad, to deduce that from such slender evidence after living with me for just three years.

Hope is what we all build lives for ourselves upon, is it not?

Sloppy idiot," Sabetha muttered at last. "You're trying to be charming. Well, I do not choose to be charmed by you, Locke Lamora.

Ha! Yes. When anyone tells you habits die hard, Locke, they're lying - it seems they never die at all.

Begging everyone's pardon," said Big Konar, "but it ain't polite to have an argument if nobody else knows what the fuck you're arguing about.

For Calo, Galdo, and Bug

You are! There ain't no Thirteenth! Ain't naught but the Twelve, that's truth! Yeah, I been to Verrar a couple times, met up with lads and lasses

Any man can fart in a closed room and say that he commands the wind

I'm not as reckless as I used to be. You know, when I was little.

Their cold blue light shone through the silver curtains of river mist as streetlamps might glimmer through a smoke-grimed window

I'm not gong to kill you, said Locke
I'm going to play a little game I like to call 'Scream in pain until you answer my fucking questions.

Chains used to claim that there's no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated," said Locke.

Why were all his fantasies so calamitous for that table, which had done him no injury?

Surely you realize," said Patience, "that cats are no great respecters of human opinion.

Go forth now and live, Locke Lamora. Live, uncertain.

Run like the hounds of hell on a sinner's scent!

Sure, kid. Look, there's a very old saying in my family: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is another wizard fucking with you.

I don't want to spend the rest of the day interrupting your questions, so I'm going to temporarily forget how to make words come out of my mouth.

What's the n-never-fail universal apology?"
"'I was badly misinformed, I deeply regret the error, go fuck yourself with this bag of money.

Yeah, but if I don't start my nervous pacing now, I'll never have it all done in time.

Blessed is the one who aids a thief, hides a thief, revenges a thief, and remembers a thief, for they shall inherit the night.

Interesting," said Sabetha, "that I mention my own feelings, and you seem to think that what I'm after is reassurance concerning your perceptions.

I don't have to beat you. I don't have to beat you, motherfucker. I just have to keep you here ... until Jean shows up.

Manners that would keep you starving are no manners worth respecting.

Crooked Warden," said Chains. "Just this morning I was suffering from the delusion that I was handing out the educations here.