Glen Cook Quotes

Nobody knew what the Company wanted. Various witnesses assigned motives according to their own fears. Few came anywhere near the mark.

Though not as bad as most, he was going through that stage where he knew everything worth knowing and nothing his elders said—particularly if it bore any vaguely education hue—was worth hearing. He could not help that. It went with the age.
And I was my age and could not help saying things I knew would do no good.

All is not lost. But neither is it found.

Bomanz could not get away from the bird, who, if he had been human, would have hung out in taverns masquerading as the world’s foremost authority, armed with an uninformed and ready opinion on every conceivable subject. His cheerful bigotry and who-cares ignorance drove the old man’s temper to its limit.

Shed swallowed. “That isn’t a plan that does much for my nerves.”
“Your nerves aren’t my problem, Shed. They’re yours. You lost them. Only you can find them again.”

Literacy is sorcery itself in the hinterland.

The list of cities lost was long and disheartening, even granting exaggeration by the reporters. Soldiers defeated always overestimate the strength of their foe. That soothes egos suspecting their own inferiority.

He jumped down, started waving his arms around while he went to squeaking and squealing in one of those languages wizards use so the rest of us will think there is something terribly strange and mystical about what they do, kind of like lawyers.

That was not supposed to happen. It was unthinkable, supposedly. And for ordinary people that was mostly true. But not so at a level where men began to believe that they existed outside the usual rules.

Seemed to have made peace with the bad times. Some manage that with comparative ease. Others remain crippled for life. Those are not the sort who remain soldiers. They become ex-soldiers and get intimate with wine or poppies.

How to argue with sociopathic reasoning? Lisa was the heart of Lisa’s universe. Other people existed only to be exploited.

Fools can make an omen of anything in retrospect.

“We’re still the Black Company. We still don’t leave our own behind.” Which was never strictly true but you do have to serve an ideal the best you can, lest it become debased. A law as ancient as coinage itself says bad money will drive out good. The same is true of principles, ethics and rules of conduct. If you always do the easier thing, then you cannot possible remain steadfast when it becomes necessary to take a difficult stand. You must do what you know to be right. And you do know. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you do know and you are just making excuses because the right thing is so hard, or just inconvenient.

Asking a storyteller not to embellish is like asking a fish to give up water.

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