Quotes from book
Soldiers Live

Soldiers Live
Glen Cook

Soldiers Live is the ninth 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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“Exact words were of no consequence. At heart the squabble was as old as humanity itself, fug-headed antiques locking horns with omniscient youth.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 87, “Glittering Stone: Fortress with No Name” (p. 639)

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“Soldiers live. He dies and not you, and you feel guilty, because you're glad he died, and not you. Soldiers live, and wonder why.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 99, “By the Military Cemetery: Missing Persons” (p. 664)
Context: “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.”

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 135, “Taglios: The Mad Season” (p. 747)

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 5, “An Abode of Ravens: Headquarters” (p. 384)

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 72, “Midway Between: The Rescuers” (p. 596)

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“Hatreds seldom are constrained to rational scales.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 5, “An Abode of Ravens: Headquarters” (p. 382)

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 78, “Midway Between: Bad News” (p. 615)

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“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 80, “The Taglian Territories: In Camp” (p. 620)

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“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.””

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 8, “Taglios: Trouble Follows” (p. 389)

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“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 131, “Around Taglios: Aerial Recon” (p. 736)

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 5, “An Abode of Ravens: Headquarters” (p. 383)

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“All is not lost. But neither is it found.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 133, “Glittering Stone: A Dangerous Game” (p. 741)

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“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

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

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 104, “Taglios: View from the Protector’s Windows” (p. 676)

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“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)

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“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 38, “The Taglian Territories: The Dandha Presh” (p. 502)

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“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 33, “Khatovar: Leave-taking” (p. 488)

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“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)

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

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 43, “The Taglian Shadowlands: The Shadowgate” (p. 514)

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“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.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 139, “Taglios: The Great General” (p. 762)

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