Bernard Cornwell quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Bernard Cornwell on Wise Famous Quotes.

A sad, plangent music. In the British camp, Sharpe thought, they would be singing, but no one was singing here.

We were dressed for war, and war was coming.

But Alfred could not live long. He was already an old man, well past forty years, and now he was looking to the future. He

It takes a weak man to prove his strength by striking a woman.

She looked at Stiorra and grinned, and I wondered whether that was what the two girls had in common: bad fathers.

The Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He

It was madness. And, as Finan had said, sometimes madness works.

I ain't seen a herd the size of it, not even when the Scots drive the beeves down from Scotland to London.

And we screamed. We screamed our war cry, our shout of slaughter, our joy of being men in battle who are driven by terror.

Only a fool leaves cash where a servant can find it,' he said.

I was hated, and I knew it. Part of it was my fault, I am arrogant.

This time, if God wills it, we shall replace him. A man bitten by a snake once does not let the snake live a second time.

Thousands!" Appah Rao's tone mocked the claim. "You may have thousands, Colonel, but the Tippoo has tigers.

Life is simple," I said. "Ale, women, sword, and reputation. Nothing else matters.

The wheel of fortune that had once raised her so high had taken her into the utter depths.

You should always plan your battles form the enemy's point of view.

The sun shone on us, the water sparkled, the oar-blades dipped and we were gone. Gone to make history.

We all suffer from dreams.

The sun flashed off the wet blades, splinters of light, then the oars dipped, were tugged, and the beast-headed boats surged, and I stared entranced.

The church, we're to meet in the church. Do try to wipe that blood off your mail, Uhtred. We're an embassy!

Only a fool takes pride in pretending that a skill he doesn't possess is worthless.

They're frightened that we'll make a sally and kill them all," Ragnar said, "so they're going to sit there and try to starve us out.

Everyone looks old to the young," Ravn said.

When a man cannot fight he would curse. The gods like to feel needed.

When you are up to your arse in shit there is only one thing to do. Attack.

The gods are capricious, and I was about to amuse them. And Alfred was right. I was a fool.

Never do what an enemy expects, Dudda. We'll go in at dawn. On the flood.

He doesn't want to face Englishmen,' the Lord of Douglas said, and he knew he was right. Ever since the Scottish knights

Lawford shrugged. "She jilted you."
"Easy come, easy go," Sharpe said, then belted the tunic.

He needed to know it, see it, smell it, and survive it. I was training the boy not just to be a warrior, but to be a king.

I was just twenty-one and my name was known wherever men sharpened swords. I was a warrior. A sword warrior, and I was proud of it.

It was funny, Richard Sharpe thought, that there were no vultures in England.

Mothers were sacred. Mothers were not expected to be pretty.

My name is Uhtred. I am the son of Uhtred, who was the son of Uhtred and his father was also called Uhtred.

our oaths.' He advanced down the path

Doubtless there were insanely frenzied warriors, but there is no evidence that lunatic nudists made regular appearances on the battlefield.

It was fate, I thought. Just fate. We think we control our own lives, but the gods play with us like children playing with straw dolls.

That dawn is seared on my memory, burnt there by the flames of a hall-burning. There was nothing we could do except watch.

And, in her fury, she slapped the king with a skinned eel.

Some Gods are wicked, Derfel. And besides, they have no duty to us, only we to them. Maybe it amused them?

So a good man can be a bad Christian?"
"I suppose so."
"Then a bad man," I said, "can be a good Christian?

Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.

He was watching my eyes. A man who uses a sword with lethal skill always matches his opponent's eyes.

He was a startlingly handsome young man, and that, too, distracted him for girls were attracted to him like priests to gold.

That is why battles of the shield wall are slow to start. Men have to nerve themselves for the horror.

Anything that comes from the north is bad news.

It is hard to force obedience," he said, "without encouraging resentment.

Agents will read unpublished work because they might make money, and that's their job. It isn't mine.

I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.

This isn't just a war over land, it's a war about God. And Alfred ... is Christ's servant ...

A leader leads," Ragnar said, "and you can't ask men to risk death if you're not willing to risk it yourself.

You know why farts smell?" "I don't." "So the deaf can enjoy them too.

Haesten.
If this world ever contained one worthless, treacherous slime-coated piece of human dung then it was Haesten.

And I must be nineteen by now, lord! Maybe even twenty?" "Eighteen?" I suggested. "I could have been married four years ago, lord!" We

We fight them where we choose or where we must, not always when we want.

I'm not his man, Father. I'm Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and the lords of Bebbanburg don't marry pious maggotfaced bitches of low birth.

I don't care if he's got a tail and tits, just take me to him." The

Serpent-Breath was famous ... Wasp-Sting, short and lethal.

Ensign Fitzgerald had somehow managed to get himself a jewelled sabre that he was now flashing around like a shilling whore given a guinea fan.

Start your killers young, before their consciences are grown. Start them young and they will be lethal.

So we all die?'
"No, no, no! We fight them!'
'How do you fight a dragon?'
'With prayer, boy, with prayer.'
'So we do all die

No man wanted to face warriors like Finan in battle.

10 East 53rd Street

Children born to unwed mothers,' he said after a long silence, 'have parts of their souls missing.

Always fight the horse, not the rider.

Fate is inexorable.

The sight of that loveliness was enough to drive all sense from a man's head.

Madness ends sometimes. The Gods decree it, not man.

I was without a lord. I was outcast. I was free. I was going Viking. There

Arrows of insight have to be winged by the feathers of speculation.

His charms worked, for though the bullets flicked close none hit him. He was the tiger of Mysore, he could not die, only kill.

Idle men make mischief, especially idle men supplied with ale, whores, and weapons.

The hall's door was framed by a pair of vast curved bones that had come from some sea monster.

Don't give me your Christian shit about forgiveness.

The rules were simple: trust no one, be ever watchful and if trouble came hit first and hit hard. It had worked for him so far.

I wondered why the gods no longer came to earth. It would make belief so much easier.

Wyrd bith ful araed (Fate is inexorable).

An army, I learned in time, needs a head. It needs one man to lead it, but give an army two leaders and you halve its strength.

Only the gods tell him what to do, and you should beware of men who take their orders from the gods.

We pulled slow and steady through the darkness and we hammered the ears of the gods with prayers.

Laughter in battle. That was what Ragnar had taught me, to take joy from the fight.

May the gods always send me stupid enemies.

a mystery to make men mad.

Bugger Shekhar. How about a bibbi instead?"
"Maybe I'll read."
"Your choice," Sharpe said carelessly.

How can a god disapprove of a good hump?

The crews of the Viking ships are Danish, Norse, Frisian, and Saxon.

Of the insolence of the Scots, my father used to say, there is no end.

They gave death with impunity as they followed a war-maddened Scotsman down an enemy wall that was sticky with blood.

She was as faithful as a morning mist, as hard as a sword-bayonet, and that, he thought, made her a suitable reward for a soldier.

The sword was called Caledfwlch, which means 'hard lightning' though Igraine prefers to call it Excalibur

Words are like breath," she said, "you say them and they're gone. But writing traps them.

I was angry. I wanted blood in the dawn.

Instinct is everything.

Writing is a solitary occupation.

ground, then drank some and fancied it

I spoke in English because the language of the Frisian people is so close to our own.

You know what circumcision is, Private?

Prisoners!" Finan shouted, and I suspected he was shouting at me because I had so blatantly ignored my own insistence that we take men captive.

So long as we remember names, so long those people live.

He has a mouth, lord," Gerbruht said.
"I envy him," I said.
"Envy him, lord?"
"Most of us have to lower our trews to shit.