137 Quotes by Glen Cook

A guy I worked with and I talked it over about what you do with drunks. His dad was a reformed drunk. He told me you got to stop trying to help them out. You got to stop making excuses for them and not take excuses from them. You got to put them on a spot where they can’t do nothing but face the truth because they aren’t going to change a bit till they decide to do it. They got to be the ones who believe they’ve turned into dregs and something has got to be changed.

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.

An old, old formula came to mind, from back when I was very young indeed. “I am a soldier.” I said it first in the language I had spoken then, then repeated myself in Sleepy’s own Dejagoran dialect. “I’ve been distracted before. I’m still alive.

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.

Little people have to hate, have to blame someone for their own inadequacies.

He surveyed his audience with that look of sublime solemnity only a drunk can muster.

Let’s say the madonnas of the night in Elm were severely disappointed in the Black Company.

One’s own yesterday is a ghost that will not be laid down.

The lower ranks have the privilege of questioning the sanity and competence of their commanders. It’s the mortar holding an army together.