Best Served Cold

“You were a hero round these parts. That's what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short.”

“You should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.”

“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.”

“Things aren't what they used to be' is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.”

“That was the difference between a hero and a villain, a soldier and a murderer, a victory and a crime. Which side of a river you called home.”

“Sometimes men change for the better. Sometimes men change for the worse. And often, very often, given time and opportunity . . .’ He waved his flask around for a moment, then shrugged. ‘They change back.”

“Have a smile for breakfast, you'll be shitting joy by lunch.”

“My name is Nicomo Cosca, famed solider of fortune, and I am here for dinner.”

“Shivers heaved out a sigh. “Just trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I’m one of those … you’ve got a word for it, don’t you?”“Idiots?”He looked sideways at her. “It was a different one I had in mind.”“Optimists.”“That’s the one. I’m an optimist.”“How’s it working out for you?”“Not great, but I keep hoping.”“That’s optimists. You bastards never learn.”

“One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.”

“What do the dice say?"Dice say nothing. They are dice."Why roll'em, then?"They are dice. What else would I do with them?”

“You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all...fit. Be right.""All my life, more of less"“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.”

“Good steel bends, but never breaks. Good steel stays always sharp and ready. Good steel feels no pain, no pity, and above all, no remorse”

“When God means to punish a man He sends him stupid friends and clever enemies.”

“The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east and stained the dark sky red, marked the scraps of the cloud with stolen gold. Underneath it the road twisted up the mountainside towards the fortress of Fontezarmo - a cluster of sharp towers, ash-black again the wounded heavens. The sunrise was red, black and gold.The colours of their profession.”

“The dead can forgive. The dead can be forgiven. The rest of us have better things to do. (Monza Murcatto)”

“You are Shenkt? I expected more.”“Pray to whatever god you believe in that you never see more.”“I do not pray.”Shenkt leaned close, and whispered in his ear. “I advise you to start.”

“A man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he find entirely beyond sufferance”

“They've strengthened the walls since last year. I wouldn't fancy trying to storm the place.""Don't pretend you'd have the guts to storm the place""I wouldn't fancy telling someone else to storm the place""Don't pretend you'd have the guts to give the orders""I wouldn't fancy watching you tell someone else to storm the place.""No.”

“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.”

“Still, it was better to swear an oath and never follow through than not even to bother with the oath. Wasn't it?”

“I never saw men act with such ignorance, violence and self-serving malice as when energised by a just cause.”

“You make yourself too hard, you make yourself brittle too. Crack once, crack all to pieces.”

“One last chance. That’s all I’m asking.” He had lost count of the number of last chances he had wasted. “Just one more. God!” He had never believed in God for an instant. “Fates!” He had never believed in Fates either. “Anyone!” He had never believed in anything much beyond the next drink. “Just one… more… chance.”“Alright. One more.”Cosca blinked. “God? Is that… you?”Someone chuckled. A woman’s voice, and a sharp, mocking, most ungodlike sort of a chuckle. “You can kneel if you like, Cosca.”

“To have a good enemy, choose a friend: he knows where to strike.”

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

“Strong leaders might like it when someone brings 'em a better idea. But weak ones never do.”

“Men are brittle, I reckon. They don't bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them.”

“Apologise to my fucking dice!”

“I am made of death. I am the Great Leveller. I am the storm in the High Places.” The Bloody-Nine’s voice, but it came from his own throat. The hall was strewn with fallen men and fallen statues, scattered with bits of both. “You.” Shivers pointed his bloody axe at the last of them, cringing at the far end of the dusty hallway. “I see you there, fucker. No one gets away.” He realised he was talking in Northern. The man couldn’t understand a word he said. Hardly mattered, though. He reckoned he got the gist.”