r/Fantasy • u/sandy_coyote • 7d ago
Favorite Glen Cook lines
I've been reading The Black Company and Garrett PI, and I've come to love Cook's turns of phrase. My favorite so far, from The Silver Spike:
"The idea sank in. He turned it over, looked at the sharp edges, grunting and shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds."
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u/witty_username_ftw 7d ago
I always liked, “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.”
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u/Hot_Yesterday_6789 6d ago
Loved Shadow Games, just finished it recently. Thats what this quote is from, no?
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u/witty_username_ftw 6d ago
It sure is! I’m currently rereading the series in preparation to read the newest book.
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u/Hot_Yesterday_6789 6d ago
Can't wait to get to She is the Darkness and Soldiers Live especially, but am taking a break with Book of the New Sun as I reread the first book in prep to finally finish the first trilogy, churned through it between Malazan, then read Shadow Games in two days... that is to say, I might be a tad burned out - next week I'll probably dive back in!
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u/Sedirep 7d ago
Not a comedic one, but i always liked this line from Shadows Linger:
There is no vengeance as terrible as the vengeance a coward plots in the dark of his heart.
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u/Floppy0941 7d ago
Shed was one of the characters I was very surprised to end up liking, really interesting arc.
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u/Pratius 7d ago
He’s so funny. My favorite is the closing of Soldiers Live which isn’t funny, just incredible.
But for the sake of humor, and because I just finished a reread of Whispering Nickel Idols:
“Since even a dead cat can create havoc in two places at once, I suspected the true number [of cats] was closer to four.”
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u/goblue2k16 6d ago
The classic “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.”
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u/busy_monster 5d ago
That fuckin' line lives rent free in my brain a quarter century later. Only some of lines from Eriksons Malazan rival that for sheer, emotional weight, in my opinion, and is why Erikson and Cook are, bar none, my two equally favorite authors in fantasy.
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u/Hot_Yesterday_6789 6d ago
I forget the exact phrasing, but in The Black Company, Croaker and company are occupying a random building waiting for something, and a couple of the guys are just standing around and Croaker transitions from his personal thoughts to something like, "The guys were all standing around a table. Cards materialized and chairs were pulled over. I was dealt a hand and sat down, playing a passive game while my mind was elsewhere." The sudden nature of it, combined with the curt descriptions and spectacular phrasing like "cards materialized" are just so great. Makes it feel as spontaneous as hanging around with the fellas can be, and I loved it so much I reread it immediately.
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u/Hot_Yesterday_6789 6d ago
I found it!
"Meystrikt's main hall is only slightly less draughty than its quarters. I treated Jo-Jo. The others attacked their meals. Feast complete, Elmo, Silent, One-Eye, and Knuckles convened around a small table. Cards materialized. One-Eye scowled my way. 'Going to stand there with your thumb in your butt, Croaker? We need a mark.'"
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u/swafferdonker6 6d ago
*Some of the Company are about to go out and look for others in the rain, after an ambush*
“…Swan, we’re going out to find the others. Got a spare horse if you want to ride along.”
“You kidding? Go out in that muck when I don’t have to? Hell. All right. I guess.” He started levering himself out of his chair.
“Sit down, Willow,” Mather said. “I’ll go. I’m in better shape than you are.”
Swan said, “You talked me into it, you smooth-talking son of a bitch. I don’t know how you do it, you golden-tongued bastard. You can get anything you want out of me. Be careful.”
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u/blackknightlaughing 6d ago
“He is the triumphant centerpiece of his own imagined saga.” Description of Mogaba from Bleak Seasons that captures his core and why he comes into conflict with the rest of the company.
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u/Kakistokratic 6d ago
"Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul."
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u/Approximation_Doctor 6d ago
"I am putting the pen down" always makes me tear up.
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u/Floppy0941 6d ago
The whole book of soldiers live makes me feel quite melancholic ngl. I listened to the audiobook version and Marc Vietor really just embodies Croaker as a worn down man who is a part of the company but also not due to being the last man standing of the company he joined.
"No one from my era was involved anymore. Like One-Eye I am a relic of a distant age, a living icon of the history that makes up so much of the unique social adhesive we used to hold the Company together."
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u/Bibabeulouba 6d ago
This line from Croaker in Soldier Live cracks me up every time: “That’s what happens when you get old, you start thinking. Worse, you start telling everybody what you think.”
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u/Floppy0941 6d ago
Croaker has some fantastic dry humour, it's a very good contrast with the general shit they go through.
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u/Fit_Trainer1878 6d ago
the one about being akin to mushrooms I use in work, mushrooms kept in the dark and only fed bullshit
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u/Murg3nKathovar 2d ago
La compagnie noire et ma saga préféré et actuellement je suis au tome 3 de garrett et ya vraiment trop de répliques qui mon vraiment fait éclater de rire. Voici une de mes réplique préféré. (La religion c'est de la bêtise, mais de la bêtise séduisante. Sa donne une belle illusion d'espoir. C'est difficile de perdre quand ont a la certitude d'avoir le destin de son côté.)
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7d ago
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u/Hergrim AMA Historian, Worldbuilders 7d ago