Quotes from book
Shadow Games

Shadow Games
Glen Cook

Shadow Games is the fourth novel in Glen Cook's ongoing series, The Black Company. The series combines elements of epic fantasy and dark fantasy as it follows an elite mercenary unit, The Black Company, through roughly forty years of its approximately four hundred-year history.

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““Truth is a deadly weapon,” Lady said.
“Which is why priests and princes dread it,” I said.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 25, “Taglios: Scouting Southward” (p. 127)

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“That damned rain had a personal grudge. It got no heavier but it never let up. Yet to east and west I saw light that indicated clear skies in those directions. The gods, if such existed, were laying on the misery especially for me.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

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

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“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. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 5, “Chains of Empire” (p. 30)

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“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)

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“Are lovers ever honest?”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 5, “Chains of Empire” (p. 31)

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““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)

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“The staff came to enquire after my needs. They were revolting in their obsequiousness.
A disgusting little part of me gobbled it up. A part just big enough to show why some men lust after power. But not for me, thank you. I am too lazy. And I am, I fear, the unfortunate victim of a sense of responsibility. Put me in charge and I try to accomplish the ends to which the office was allegedly created. I guess I suffer from an impoverishment of the sociopathic spirit necessary to go big time.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 6, “Opal” (p. 34)

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“Never underestimate the power of human ingratitude.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 30, “Taglios Aroused” (p. 156)

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“Willow, if the gods thought half as much of you as you think of yourself, you’d be king of the world.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 7, “Smoke and the Woman” (p. 39)

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“I began to back away.
This is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 5, “Chains of Empire” (p. 31)

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“Trouble came only where I expected it, from One-Eye, whose motto is that anything not nailed down is his and anything he can pry loose isn’t nailed down.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 38, “Invaders of the Shadowlands” (p. 194)

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“I was learning that part of a captain’s job is to delegate. Maybe genius lies in choosing the right person for the right task.”

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 31, “Taglios: a Boot-Camp City” (p. 165)

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“The Radisha kicked over a pile of books. “I’ve never felt so powerless. I don’t like the feeling.”
Smoke shrugged. “Welcome to the world where the rest of us live.””

Glen Cook book Shadow Games

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 29, “Smoke’s Hideout” (p. 153)

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