If reassurances could dull pain, nobody would ever go to the trouble of pressing grapes.
Locke sighed.’So this is winning,’ he said.’It is,’ replied Jean. ‘It can go fuck itself,’ said Locke.
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.
Advice,” Doña Vorchenza chuckled. “Advice. The years play a sort of alchemical trick, transmuting one’s mutterings to a state of respectability. Give advice at forty and you’re a nag. Give it at seventy and you’re a sage.
Get used to gaps in your comprehension,” said Sabetha. “The rest of us certainly have.
Worst of all, the inner vault is guarded by a live dragon, attended by fifty naked women armed with poisoned spears, each of them sworn to die in Requin’s service. All redheads.-You’re just making that up, Jean.
There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.
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.
Her eyes [were] like the sudden plunge to blue depths beyond a continental shelf.
Crooked Warden, I will fear no darkness for the night is yours. Your night is my cloak, my shield, my escape from those who hunt to feed the noose. I will fear no evil, for you have made the night my friend.
What do you think of the old boy?” said Jean.”He’s got a strangely sunny view of ten years of defeat”, said Locke, “but if I get killed in the next six weeks, I want him to speak at my funeral.
A troupe learns to play like we all learn to screw, stumbling and jostling until everything’s finally in the right place.
You want a lesson, boy? If you find yourself being born, climb back in as quick as you can, because life’s a bottomless feast of shit.
I sometimes think that ‘friend’ is just a word I use for all the people I haven’t murdered yet.
I thought we were celebrating being richer and cleverer than everyone else!
We like what we like, we want what we want, and nobody needs to give us permission to feel that way!
Familiarity has a way of filing the sharp edges off our feelings for other people. You’ll see.
If you want to write a negative review, don’t tickle me gently with your aesthetic displeasure about my work. Unleash the goddamn Kr
I assure you that in all matters of discretion not involving food, we make etiquette tutors look like slobbering barbarians.
Yes,” said Locke.”Yes, Master Ibelius. I’m going to put that fucker in the dirt as deeply as any man who’s ever been murdered, ever since the world began.
It’s things like this makes a ship seem like home. Help you forget what a load of tedious old shit life out here can be.
The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily the respond to real control.
You’ll pardon me,” he finally said, “if the suggestion that the minuscule black turnip you call a heart is suddenly overflowing with generosity toward me leaves me wanting to arm myself and put my back against a wall.
What thief does not fight to hold what he has?””One that has something better” – Locke Lamora to the Gray king
Can you imagine those poor bastards grappling their prey, leaping over the rails, swords in hand, screaming ‘Your cats! Give us all your god-damned cats!
Gentlemen Bastards.” hissed Locke, “do not abandon one another, and we do not run when we owe vengeance.
It’s an old Camorri tradition for when a bunch of people are planning something stupid,” said Locke. “Actually, we have a lot of traditions for that. You’ll find out
To live the life the gods have given you, you must clutch wisely, then run. Run like the houds of hell on a sinner’s scent!
Sophara scrawled orders on a slate and handed it to one of the libationarians, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the contents and locations of all the bottles kept the bar running.
We’re a different sort of thief here, Lamora. Deception and misdirection are our tools. We don’t believe in hard work when a false face and a good line of bullshit can do so much more.
I think piracy is a bit like drinking. You want to stay out all night doing it, you pay the price the next day.
Sweat, scalded meat, puke, blood, smoke and a dozen kinds of bad ale and wine: the bouquet of civilized nightlife
In a fair fight, the don’s man would almost certainly paint the walls with Locke and Calo’s blood, so it stood to reason that this fight would have to be as unfair as possible.
Only prisoners were ever granted easy passage into a prison.
We don’t see the life after life as it truly is, because in our eyes it conforms to our mechanics of nature.
When the sky’s falling, I take shelter under bullshit.
Endure for another day, Mister Tannen, and you’ll have all the foul black misuse of water you can drink.