Glen Cook Quotes

Every ounce of my cynicism is supported by historical precedent.

~ Glen Cook

The man who counts on the aid of a god deserves the help he doesn't get.

~ Glen Cook

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

No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshippers' description. I don't see how they could survive their own insanity. But it's not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny.

~ Glen Cook

Nevertheless, four hours after dawn they began dying for their cause.

~ Glen Cook

Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.

~ Glen Cook

I'm a bad man. I need to understand the past. It illuminates the present.

~ Glen Cook

Write. Don't talk about writing. Don't tell me about your wonderful story ideas. Don't give me a bunch of 'somedays'. Plant your ass and scribble, type, keyboard. If you have any talent at all it will leak out despite your failure to pay attention in Eng

~ Glen Cook

One's own yesterday is a ghost that will not be laid down.

~ Glen Cook

More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.

~ Glen Cook

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

There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.

~ Glen Cook

The people come from everywhere, from five hundred miles, to find their fortunes. By 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 con conjure by existing.

~ Glen Cook

There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies. We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant.

~ Glen Cook

I am haunted by the clear knowledge that, in the end, evil always triumphs.

~ Glen Cook

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

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

~ Glen Cook

One endured with humble dignity the consequences of youthful folly.

~ Glen Cook

An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronising wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

~ Glen Cook

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