“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. I was her truth object, and she was mine.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“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.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“About you and me, Croaker and his gang, the Lady, Silent, Darling. About all the things we had in common but still couldn’t get along.” “I didn’t see all that much you had in common. Not once you got past having the same enemies.” “Neither did I for a long time. And none of them saw it, either. Else we all might have tried a little harder.” I tried to look like I gave a shit at three in the morning. “Basically we’re all lonely, unhappy people looking for our place, Case. Loners who’d really rather not be but don’t know how. When we get to the door that would let us in—or out—we can’t figure out how to work the latch string.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“Something he had heard some wise man say. About the three stages of empire, the three generations. First came the conquerers, unstoppable in war. Then came the administrators, who bound it all together into one apparently unshakable, immortal edifice. Then came the wasters, who knew no responsibility and squandered the capital of their inheritance upon whims and vices. And fell to other conquerers.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“My name is Case. Philodendron Case. Thanks to my Ma. I’ve never even told Raven about that. That’s why I joined the army. To get away from the kind of potato diggers that would stick a name like that on a kid. I had seven sisters and four brothers last time I got a head count. Every one is named after some damned flower. A girl named Iris or Rose, what the hell, hey? But I got a brother named Violet and another brother named Petunia. What kind of people do that do their kids? Where the hell are the Butches and Spikes? Potato diggers.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“One-Eye scowled at Goblin. “Keep it up, Barf Bag. You’ll be grocery shopping with the turtles.” What the hell did that mean? Some kind of obscure shop talk? But Goblin was as croggled as the rest of us. Grinning, One-Eye resumed gabbling with his relatives.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“There is nothing so unreasonable and irrational and blind—and just plain silly-looking—as a man who works himself into an obsessive passion.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“I admitted, “This might not have been one of my brighter ideas.” “On the contrary. It confirms our suspicions that there’s a greater interest in us than should be for simple travellers. They mean to use us.” She was disturbed. “Welcome to life in the Black Company, sweetheart,” I said. “Now you know why I’m cynical about lords and such. Now you know one of the feelings I’ve been trying to get across.” “Maybe I get it. A little. I feel demeaned. Like I’m not human at all but an object that might be useful.” “Like I said, welcome to the Black Company.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“He’d described himself as looking like a child molester waiting for a chance to strike. He wasn’t comfortable with his appearance.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
Glen Cook
Born place: in The United States
Born date July 9, 1944
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“Betia laughed a little, shaking her head. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek as she grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. Her brown eyes glittered with a devil-may-care recklessness that warmed me to my toes. If it would make her smile that way, I would dance all night.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Wolfcry
“I know who didn’t kill her.” “Don’t”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from The General's Daughter
“People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
...
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort.”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain
“That's what happens.
You just get on with it.
There are no endings.”
― Kevin Brooks, quote from Lucas
“One of my mother’s friends was an artist. He showed me a few things – though warning me that to become an artist was the only certain way to starve.”
― Diana Gabaldon, quote from Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade
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