Glen Cook

"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."

"Peace had broken out and was being enthusiastically exploited on the presumption that it could not possibly last."

"Soldiers live. And wonder why."

"“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."

"I sped a prayer heavenward. God needs to be reminded."

"You can be screamingly blind to the obvious if you don’t realize that you have not opened up all the doors of your mind."

"Beneath my breath I continued my conversation with God. As usual, He did not trouble Himself to defend His Works to me. My fault for being a woman."

"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."

"Leadership tip: Sound confident even when you have no idea. Just do not make a habit of it. They will find you out."

"Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true."

"I must be alive. Otherwise I wouldn’t hurt so much."

"Cruel, cruel tricks of the Adversary. I had been gifted with a mind that wanted to explore, to find out, to know. And I had been gifted with faith. And now I had been gifted with information that put fact and faith into conflict. I had not been gifted with a priest’s slippery dexterity when it came to reconciling the philosophically irreconcilable."

"“When you get back to Taglios now, Master, you can establish a mighty reputation by explaining the myths in the words of a being who lived through their creation.” Santaraksita smiled sourly, “You know better, Dorabee. Mythology is one area where nobody wants to know the absolute truth because time has forged great symbols from raw materials supplied by ancient events. Prosaic distortions of fact metamorphose into perceived truths of the soul.” He had a point. In religion, precise truth has almost no currency. True believers will kill and destroy to defend their inaccurate beliefs. And that is a truth upon which you can rely."

"If I had my druthers I’d be twenty-three years old for the rest of my life. Which would last another three thousand years."

"“Used to be” is not worth the breeze on which it is scribbled."

"Hatreds seldom are constrained to rational scales."

"No world lacks its villains so self-confident that they don’t believe they can get the best end of a bargain with the darkness."

"Life with me and the Company has not been anything like happily ever after. Reality has a way of slow-roasting romance."

"The thing that you know to be true is the lie that will kill you."

"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."

"He was pursuing a running debate with his own guilts and ghosts—unless he was spouting proverbs and aphorisms, most of the meanings fairly obvious but a few convolute and obscure. He was particularly fond of “Fortune smiles. And then betrays.” He just could not get into bed comfortably with the truth that he had made that bed himself. He still had difficulty separating “ought to be” from “the way things really are.”"

"It looks like it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every single branch on the way down."

"There are several huge monasteries—of which Khang Phi is the greatest—dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. The monks do not sort it into good and evil knowledge, nor do they make moral judgments. They take the position that no knowledge is evil until someone chooses to do evil with it."

"There are, of course, a thousand sophistries spewed by those who wish to deny individuals the opportunity to choose. Which is an arrogant presumption of a divine scale."

"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."

"I reminded myself that Khang Phi is bereft of arms. That the monks abhor violence. That they always yield to strength, then seduce it with reason and wisdom. Yes, sometimes it does take a while."

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

"There was one temporal power greater than the greatest sorcery. Greed."

"I did not expect them to try anything but I am alive at my age because I make a habit of being ready for trouble when it seems most unlikely."

"She—and I—were of an age now where we spent too much time wondering how things might have gone had we made a few different choices."

"A sign of advancing age. You start obsessing about how much you have to get done in the time that you have left."

"I felt wonderfully wicked. I always do when I frustrate overly powerful, responsible-to-no-one types who think all existence was created only for their pleasure and exploitation."

"I tend toward the cynical view where religion is concerned."

"She was not listening. If she listened she would have to hear uncomfortable truths."

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

"Generating rumors is one thing even the most inept armed force does exceedingly well."

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

"Life is never like a canal, flowing gently through a straightforward and predictable channel. It is more like a mountain brook, zigging and zagging, tearing things up, sometimes going almost dormant before taking an unexpected and turbulent turn."

"Against the years all men campaign in vain."

"Exact words were of no consequence. At heart the squabble was as old as humanity itself, fug-headed antiques locking horns with omniscient youth."

"Being an old cynic myself I have strong notions about the true value of human gratitude. It is a currency whose worth plunges by the hour."

"“It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” my darling whispered to me. “People go at the oddest times and from the oddest causes.” “Soldiers live,” I muttered. “You’re turning that into a mantra.” “You feel guilty. You wonder why him and not me, then you’re glad it was him and not you, then you feel guilty. Soldiers live. And wonder why.”"

"It was the wee hours of the morning, when even the heartbeat of the world had trouble thumping on."

"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."

"But with royalty you never know. They think differently than real people. The real world never quite seems to reach them."

"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."

"All is not lost. But neither is it found."

"I’m an incurable romantic. The essence of romance is an unshakable conviction that next time will be different."

"Suvrin had a little too much of the politician in him. Too much of the kind of mind willing to let an individual go so the rest will not be inconvenienced."