Glen Cook: Quotes about people

“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.”

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 38, “Juniper: The Storm” (p. 390)

People , Religion

“Man, woman and child, the people of Shadowcatch were privy to the one true secret of the universe: there is always a darker shadow lurking beyond the one whose face you can see.”

Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons

Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 35 (p. 108)

People , Secret , Universe

“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)

People , Fools

“The people come from everywhere, from five hundred miles, to find their fortunes. But Fortune is an ugly, two-faced goddess.
When you have lived with her handiwork for half a generation, you hardly notice anymore. You forget that this is not the way life has to be. You cease to marvel at just how much evil man can conjure simply by existing.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 11 (p. 55)

Life , People , Way , Evil

“He knew that he had screwed up but he was the kind of guy who, after he shoots his mouth off, cannot back down or admit any failing. The world is full of those people. All of us would be better off if their fathers would strangle them as soon as they showed signs of being that way. This particular fool was willing to sacrifice an army rather than admit his error.”

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 30 (p. 368)

People , World , Fools , Way

“I’ve always known people for whom a goal was everything, who never thought nothing about the consequences of the goal achieved.”

Glen Cook book The Silver Spike

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 36 (p. 562)

People

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 126, “Taglios: Royal Return” (p. 720)

People , World , Thinking

“I have seen it before. Little people have to hate, have to blame someone for their own inadequacies.”

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 33, “Juniper: The Encounter” (p. 370)

Hate , People

“Blade grumbled about the absurdities of the theological imagination and why didn’t people have sense enough to smother would-be priests in their cradles?”

Glen Cook Dreams of Steel

Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter 10 (p. 261)

People , Imagination , Sense

“Ever since childhood I have suspected you get along better if you respect people’s ways and wishes regardless of your apparent relative strengths.
That doesn’t mean you let people walk on you. It doesn’t mean you eat their pain for them. You need to demand respect for yourself, too.”

Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons

Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 25 (p. 67)

Pain , People , Way , Childhood

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

Glen Cook book Shadows Linger

Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 29, “Juniper: Payoff” (p. 346)

People , Universe , Heart

“That was not supposed to happen. It was unthinkable, supposedly. And for ordinary people that was mostly true. But not so at a level where men began to believe that they existed outside the usual rules.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 28 (pp. 107-108)

Men , People

“It is a saying of my people. Even Water sleeps. But Enemy never rests.”

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 79 (p. 554)

People , Sleep , Water

“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)

Children , People

“You can blame a wizard for anything and people will believe you.”

Glen Cook book Bleak Seasons

Source: Bleak Seasons (1996), Chapter 77 (p. 212)

People

“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 12, “Glittering Stone: Steadfast Guardian” (p. 401)

Hunger , People , Faith , Soul

“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)

People , Suffering , Heart , Parting

““We all do that. In every day life it’s called making excuses.” True, raw motives are too rough to swallow. By the time most people reach my age, they have glossed their motives so often and so well they fall completely out of touch with them.”

Glen Cook The Black Company

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

Life , People , Age , Motivation

“Bomanz sighed. A man couldn’t get five minutes alone. What the hell did he get married for? Why did any man? You spent the rest of your life doing hard time, doing what other people wanted, not what you wanted.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 10, “Bomanz’s Story” (p. 491)

Life , People , Hell , Time