Цитаты из книги «Хитрости Локка Ламоры», страница 11

"What kind of knife is this?" Locke held a rounded buttering utensil up for Chains` inspection. "It`s all wrong. You couldn`t kill anyone with this."

"Well, not very easily, I`ll grant you that, my boy. <...> But when the quality get together to dine, it`s impolite to knock anybody off with anything but poison. That thing is for scooping butter, not slicing windpipes."

"You`re going to make a death-offering for every single boy or girl you got killed, Locke. One for Veslin, one for Gregor. One for each of your little friends in Streets. I`m sure I`ll know the count in just a day or two."

"But I... They weren`t..."

"Of course they were your friends, Locke. They were your very good friends. Because they`re going to teach you that when you kill someone, there are consequences. It is one thing to kill in a duel, to kill in self-defence, to kill for vengeance. It is another thing entirely to kill simply because you are careless. Those deaths are going to hang over your head until you`re so careful you make the saints of Perelando weep."

When you mess with a leader`s ability to rule his gang, out come the knives.

"Oh-ho-ho!" Chains reached out and slapped the boy on the shoulder. "Enlightment! When it comes, it comes like a brick to the head, doesn`t it?

You can`t help being young, but it`s past time that you stopped being stupid.

"Bug," Calo said, "Locke is like a brother to us, and our love for him has no bounds. But the four most fatal words in the Therin language are 'Locke would appreciate it.'"

"Rivaled only by 'Locke taught me a new trick,'" added Galdo.

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

"-is Locke Lamora-"

"-because we think the gods are saving him up for a really big death. Something with knives and hot irons-"

"-and fifty thousand cheering spectators."

We have a saying - that undeserved good fortune always conceals a snare.

I`m so pleased that you only choose victims of the highest moral quality.

"Gods, I love this place," Locke said, drumming his fingers against his thighs. "Sometimes I think this whole city was put here simply because the gods must adore crime. Pickpockets rob the common folk, merchants rob anyone they can dupe, Capa Barsavi robs the robbers and the common folk, the lesser nobles rob nearly everyone, and Duke Nicovante occasionally runs off with his army and robs the shit out of Tal Verrar on Jerem, not to mention what he does to his own nobles and his common folk."

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

"Yes, we do sort of screw that pretty picture up, don`t we?"

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.