Glen Cook

The essence of sorcery, even for its nonfraudulent practitioners, is misdirection.

Every time I see a mirror I’m amazed. I end up wondering who’s taken over the outside of me. A disgusting old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to snicker at when I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man. I’m trapped inside him, and I’m not ready to go.

That damned rain had a personal grudge. It got no heavier but it never let up. Yet to east and west I saw light that indicated clear skies in those directions. The gods, if such existed, were laying on the misery especially for me.

You might have noticed that the human animal is fond of forming and clinging to prejudices, remaining their steadfast curator in the face of all reason and contradiction.

I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks.

Good morning. I’m honored but I’m also pressed for time. If you have something to discuss please get to the point. I’m an hour behind schedule and didn’t budget time for socializing.

Time has a way of blunting the sharpest edge of determination.

“They worship the goddess, Mistress. They think. But their heresies are revolting. They are worse than disbelief.”
Why was he incensed? A prolonged exchange failed to illuminate me. No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. It is hard enough to accept the fact that they really believe the nonsense of their faiths. I always wonder if they are pulling my leg with a straight face.

You mess with people’s religion and you mess with fire. Even people who don’t much give a damn. Religion is something that gets hammered in early, and never really goes away. And has powers to move which go beyond anything rational.

The best of the diviner breed are never wrong because they never set anything in stone.

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

Best way out," Elmo observed laconically, "would be to kill everybody who knows anything, then all of us fall on our swords."
"Sounds a little extreme," Goblin opined. "But if you want to go first, I'm right behind you.

She had a full measure of youth’s indifference to the past.

This is what happens when you get old. You start thinking. Worse, you start telling everybody what you think.

Baladitya understands that in addition to being foreign territory the past is, as history, a hall of mirrors that reflect the needs of souls observing from the present. Absolute fact serves the hungers of only a few disconnected people. Symbol and faith serve the rest.