Quotes from Glen Cook

Something he had heard some wise man say. About the three stages of empire, the three generations. First came the conquerers, unstoppable in war. Then came the administrators, who bound it all together into one apparently unshakable, immortal edifice. Then came the wasters, who knew no responsibility and squandered the capital of their inheritance upon whims and vices. And fell to other conquerers.

These boys both fell out of the ugly tree at a young age, hitting every damned branch on the way down. Then their mommas whupped them with an ugly stick and fed them ugly soup every day of their lives. They were Uh-glee, with a couple of capital double-ugs.

let the gods distinguish between the wiched and the merely incompetent.

Little girls are twice as precious and innocent as little boys. I do not know a culture that does not make them that way.

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.

I have been told I always look at the dark underbelly of tomorrow. Possibly. You're less likely to be disappointed that way.

If war is too important to trust to generals, then policy is too important to trust to politicians.

There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints.

Wars are being fought every day, even where armies are not on the march. And wars within wars. And wars behind wars.

I guess I was getting blasé about windwhale-riding.

The books must be written. The truth must be recorded even if fate decrees that no man ever reads a word I write. The Annals are the soul of the Black Company. They recall that this is who we are. That this is who we were. That we persevere. And that treachery, as it ever has, failed to suck the last drop of our blood.

Its front sags against its neighbor to the right, clinging for support like one of its own drunken patrons.

An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronising wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

An adventure is somebody else slogging through the mud and snow while suffering from trench foot, ringworm, dysentery and starvation being chased by people with their hearts set on murder or more. I have been there. I have done that, playing both parts. I do not recommend it. Be content with a nice farm or shop. Make lots of babies and bring them up to be good people.

Order was what regular people wanted. Order and security were necessary before prosperity could take hold. The political crap, the who is going to be in charge, did not matter to most folks.

There was no peace inside the bounds spanned by God's Peace. Because men did not just demand submission to the Will of God, they demanded submission to themselves. Nor could they agree what the Will of God might be.

The age is sorrowfully short of characters of the magnificently villainous vitality of those the Dominator took in olden times: Soulcatcher, the Hanged Man, Nightcrawler, Shapeshifter, the Limper, and such. Those were nastymen of the grand scope, nearly as wild and hairy in their wickedness as the Lady and Dominator themselves.

My guess is, six of one, half a dozen of the other. Crows

monsters aren't born, they're made. That they are memorials which take years of cruelty to sculpt. And that while we should weep for the tortured child who served as raw material, we should permit no sentiment to impede us while we rid the world of the terror strewn by the finished work.

Raven is an asset in any game including One-Eye. One-Eye cheats. But never when Raven is playing.

He'd described himself as looking like a child molester waiting for a chance to strike. He wasn't comfortable with his appearance.

Thunderheads with lightning swords aflash on their brows grumbled and pounded the badlands, reminding me that trouble was not far away.

God Save the Queen.'" Which is a particularly filthy drinking song about a cross-dressing fellow who has mad skills as a streetwalker but often gets

Even Brownie had a comment, a small doggie whimper. She leaned against the outside of my right thigh. Yeah. I started scratching ears. Those beasts have selectively bred us for thousands of years.