Quotes from work

The Lies of Locke Lamora

“Advice,” chuckled Doña Vorchenza. “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.”

“[W]hen you find yourself face to face with one [Bondsmage], you bow and scrape and mind your 'sirs' and 'madams.'"

…

'Nice bird, asshole,' said Locke.”

“The only person who gets away with Locke Lamora games—” “—is Locke Lamora—”

“Gentlemen Bastards." hissed Locke, "do not abandon one another, and we do not run when we owe vengeance.”

“When you see the Crooked Warden," said Locke, twisting something in his hands, "tell him that Lock Lamora learns slowly, but he learns well. And when you see my friends, you tell them that there are more of you on the way.”

“I trust my points are noted… Very noted… Received, recognized, and duly considered with the utmost gravity. Sealed, notarized, and firmly imprinted upon my rational essence.”

“What thief does not fight to hold what he has?"

"One that has something better," said Locke.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.”

“You simply collapsed, sir. In layman's terms, your body revoked its permission for you to continue heaping abuse upon it.”

“If reassurances could dull pain, nobody would ever go to the trouble of pressing grapes.”

“Nice bird, asshole!”

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

“If you put Durant's brains in a thimble full of water they'd look like a ship lost in the middle of the sea.”

“For Calo, Galdo, and Bug”

“Justice is red.”

“The only constant in the soul of man is inconstancy; anything and everything else can pass out of fashion--even something as utilitarian as a hill stuffed full of corpses.”