Glen Cook Quotes

Dawn comes early when you wish it would not. The hours flash when you want them to drag.

You are a hired sword. A soldier. You should not be playing philosophical games. Not even with yourself.

I could not get my feelings straight. I did not believe in evil as an active force, only as a matter of viewpoint, yet I had seen enough to make me question my philosophy. If the Lady were not evil incarnate, then she was as close as made no difference.

Smeds did not give a rat’s ass who ran things as long as they left him alone. Most people felt that way.

It proved to be much farther than I had hoped. It always is when you are running away.

But, no. It was too late. Fortune’s die was cast. The cruel game had to be played to its end, no matter what anyone wanted.

The world sure isn’t kind to the man who tries to be gentle and thoughtful.

Only this time it was just a brief rest, till the stars came out. They stared down with mockery in their twinkles, saying all our sweat and blood really had no meaning in the long eye of time. Nothing we did would be recalled a thousand years from now.
Such thoughts infected us all. No one had any ideals or glory-lust left. We just wanted to get somewhere, lie down, and forget the war.
The war would not forget us.

Against the years all men campaign in vain.

And there went some good old-fashioned wishful thinking, Sleepy. We were talking about human beings. If there is any way to be contrary, unreasonable and obnoxious, human beings are sure to find and pursue it. With verve and enthusiasm at whatever might be the most inconvenient time.

He had leaped into the embrace of self-delusion.
There was a lot of that going around.

There were prodigies and portents enough, One-Eye says. We must blame ourselves for misinterpreting them. One-Eye’s handicap in no way impairs his marvelous hindsight.

“We all do that. In every day life it’s called making excuses.” True, raw motives are too rough to swallow. By the time most people reach my age, they have glossed their motives so often and so well they fall completely out of touch with them.

I told her I could not believe in her movement because it did not promise anything for the future except freedom from the tyranny of the past. I told her that what little philosophy I’d detected driving the movement totally ignored human nature. That if the Rebels ever did manage to topple the empire, whatever replaced it would be worse. That was the lesson of history. New regimes, to make sure they survived, were always nastier than the ones before them.

Do you think we could get a tutor for Varth?”