The Books of the South (The Chronicles of the Black Company, #3.5-5)

by Glen Cook

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.

I guess I suffer from an impoverishment of the sociopathic spirit necessary to go big time.

There is nothing so unreasonable and irrational and blind—and just plain silly-looking—

a man who works himself into an obsessive passion. Women do not look as foolish. They are expected to be weak. But they are also expected to become savage bitches when they are frustrated.

There is neither right nor wrong, neither good nor evil, only our side and theirs. The honor of the Company lies within, directed one brother toward another. Without, honor

lies only in keeping faith with the sponsor.

When the watchful eye lapses those who are watched invariably sense the instant of freedom.

More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way. Few villains think they are villains.

No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem.

His dad was a reformed drunk. He told me you got to stop trying to help them out. You got to stop making excuses for them and not take excuses from them. You got to put them on a spot where they can’t do nothing but face the truth because they aren’t going to change a bit till they decide to do it.

What the hell can you do with women? You can give them exactly what they ask for and they’ll cuss you because that ain’t what they really want.

Which got him to remembering all the bullies who had taunted and slapped and shoved him around and puzzling the eternal why did they do it when he’d never done a thing to them.

The rage was like the cholera. Not everyone had it yet. But both would claim many more before they subsided.

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. This empire was making the transition from the age of the conquerer to that of the administrator.