Glen Cook: Doing

Glen Cook is American fiction writer. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Glen Cook: 410 quotes3 likes

“What do you do when old prophecies come true? I’ve never met a priest who honestly expected miracles in his own lifetime. For them miracles are like good wine, best when aged.”

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter (p. 430)

“Desperate people will do what they must to survive. Only a fool would expect the results to be pretty.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 6 (p. 31)

“He couldn’t handle what it meant to have somebody in love with you. Running away was the only thing he knew how to do.”

Glen Cook book The Silver Spike

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 1 (p. 457)

“Why do sorcerers always use languages nobody understands? Even Goblin and One-Eye do it. Each has confided that he cannot follow the tongue the other uses. Maybe they make it up?”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 53, “The Recovery” (p. 677)

“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 48, “The Shadowgate: The Warlords of the Air” (p. 530)

“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.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 4 (p. 18)

““I’ve been on my own before, Mather.” And I hadn’t been happy a moment. But happiness is a fleeting creature. It’s no birthright. Not anything I expect but something I accept when I tumble into it. Meantime, power will do nicely.”

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter 14 (p. 276)

“It is not necessarily for mercenary soldiers to know what is going on. It is sufficient for them to do the job for which they have taken the gold. That had been drummed into me from the moment I enlisted. There is neither right nor wrong, neither good nor evil, only our side and theirs. The honor of the company lies within, directed one brother toward another. Without, honor lies only in keeping faith with the sponsor.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 28, “Back to Scouting” (p. 148)

““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.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 72 (pp. 255-256)

“A teacher?”
“Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which here is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.”
“Interesting.”
“Well. Yes. There is god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger that cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.”
“Death?”
“I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.”
The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death.
“I understand.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

“Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”
Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 39, “A Guest at Charm” (p. 625)

“I do not worship any gods myself, though I guess some are real in their own ways. I have to believe that all of them get regular belly-laughs because one of them was ingenious to create human sexuality. Even greed and lust for power do not come close to generating the stupidities that us being male and female do.
But by giving it half a thought I can think of as many glories that spring from the same dichotomy.”

Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons

Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 98 (p. 266)

“Krage eyed us from a face of stone. “I help you with something, Inquisitor?”
“Probably not. You’d lie to me if the truth would save your soul, you bloodsucker.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere. What do you want, you parasite?”
Tough boy, this Krage. Struck from the same mold as Bullock, but he had drifted into a socially less honored profession. Not much to choose between them I thought. Priest and moneylender.”

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 14, “Juniper: Duretile” (p. 283)

“She wasn’t satisfied with the way things turned out. What the hell can you do with women? You can give them exactly what they ask for and they’ll cuss you because that ain’t what they really want.”

Glen Cook book The Silver Spike

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 38 (p. 569)

““Given time we would have become less than indispensable and you would have started looking around for a way to shaft us instead of doing the honorable thing and paying us off and simply terminating our comission.”
“That’s what I love about you, Croaker. Your unflagging faith in humanity.”
“Absolutely. Every ounce of my cynicism is supported by historical precedent,” I grumped.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 11, “A March into Yesteryear” (p. 54)

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

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 87 (p. 313)

“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.”

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 41 (p. 412)

“Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from?”

Glen Cook The Black Company

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 4, “Whisper” (p. 115)

“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 10, “An Abode of Ravens: Recovery” (p. 397)

“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 6, “An Abode of Ravens: Suvrin’s News” (p. 384)

“But how do you get rid of a god? Is there any religion where they teach you that? How to get your god off your back if he gets too damned obnoxious? No. All you ever get is advice on how to bribe them to leave you alone for a few minutes.”

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 39 (p. 403)