“Evil is relative…You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“If one chooses sides on emotion then the rebel is the guy to go with. He is fighting for everything men claim to honour, freedom, independance, truth, the right.......all the subjective illusions. All the eternal trigger words. We are minions of the villan of the piece. We confess the illusion and deny the substance.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“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, quote from The Black Company
“Only a conquerer bothers to honor a fallen foe.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“You who come after me, scribbling these Annals, by now realize that I shy off portraying the whole truth about our band of blackguards. You know they are vicious, violent, and ignorant. They are complete barbarians, living out their cruelest fantasies, their behavior tempered only by the presence of a few decent men. I do not often show that side because these men are my brethren, my family, and I was taught young not to speak ill of kin. The old lessons die hardest.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“I was my usual charming morning self, threatening blood feud with anyone fool enough to disturb my dreams.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“Still, the best augurs are those who divine from the portents of the past. They compile phenomenal records.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“Ah, the smell of mystery and dark doings, of skulduggery and revenge. The meat of a good tale.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“I damned myself for my earlier romanticism. That Croaker who had come north, so thoroughly bemused by the mysterious Lady, was another man. A stripling, filled with the foolish ignorances of youth. Yeah. Sometimes you lie to yourself just to keep going.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“One endured with humble dignity the consequences of youthful folly.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“The price of order,” I muttered. I tried to run the dog off. It wouldn’t budge.
“The cost of chaos,” Tom-Tom countered. Thump on his drum. “Not quite the same thing, Croaker.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“A herd of minuscule lightning bugs poured out of One-Eye's nostrils. Good soldiers all, they fell into formation, spelling out the words Goblin is a Poof.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“Back to the company. Back to business. Back to the parade of years. Back to the annals. Back to fear.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“Nevertheless, four hours after dawn they began dying for their cause.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“Closer at hand, the wheeling gulls were as surly and lackadaisical as the day promised to make most men.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“The Hanged Man stopped gesturing and struck a pose: man listening.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“One-Eye’s handicap in no way impairs his marvelous hindsight. Lightning”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“Okay, Croaker. What the hell happened?”
“I don't know. The falling sickness?”
“Give him some of his own soup,” somebody suggested. “Serve him right.” A tin cup appeared. We forced its contents down his throat.
His eye clicked open. “What are you trying to do? Poison me? Feh! What was that? Boiled sewage?”
“Your soup,” I told him.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Black Company
“I love you,” she whispered.
He stroked his hand down her back. “Yep, you do.”
“You’re supposed to say it back,” she said, pretending to be offended because the silliness kept the fear/hope at bay.
“Why?” He scowled down at her. “You know you’re my heartbeat.”
― Nalini Singh, quote from Mine to Possess
“And I said, ‘I’m thinkin’ I’ve wasted too much time thinkin’, is what I’m thinkin'.”
― Melinda Haynes, quote from Mother of Pearl
“Now we have found that this is of paramount importance in order to progress. We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
“But there is an unholy fascination in systematic noise. He did not flee from it incontinently, as one might have expected him to do. He remained, astonished at himself for remaining, since nothing could have been more repulsive to his tastes, more painful to his senses, and, so to speak, more contrary to his genius, than this rude exhibition of vigour. The Zangiacomo band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of violence; and that impression was so strong that it seemed marvelous to see the people sitting so quietly on their chairs, drinking so calmly out of their glasses, and giving no signs of distress, anger, or fear. Heyst averted his gaze from the unnatural spectacle of their indifference.”
― Joseph Conrad, quote from Victory
“Do well. Act with honour and dignity. Not because there is some promised reward, but because it is the only way to live. And that is as true for my kind as for yours.”
― Miles Cameron, quote from The Red Knight
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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