Cornwell Quotes

Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran towards them. The 33rd, released from the tight discipline of the ranks, charged eagerly. There was loot ahead. Loot and food and stunned men to slaughter and there were few men in the 33rd who did not like a good fight. Not many had joined the ranks out of patriotism; instead, like Sharpe, they had taken the King's shilling because hunger or desperation had forced them into uniform, but they were still good soldiers. They came from the gutters of Britain where a man survived by savagery rather than by cleverness. They were brawlers and bastards, alley-fighters with nothing to lose but tuppence a day. ~ Bernard Cornwell

-"I have kept the faith, Planchard."
-"Then you are the only man who has" Planchard said, "and it is an heretical faith."
-"They crucified Christ for heresy" Vexille said, "so to be named a heretic is to be one with Him. ~ Bernard Cornwell

This was a clever man, as clever as Alfred, and he knew that weakness invited war. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Together we would make reputation, we would have men in halls across Britain telling the story of our exploit. Or of our deaths. They were friends, they were oath-men, they were young, they were warriors, and with such men it might be possible to storm the gates of Asgard itself. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I just gazed at the smoke haze above Lundene, the darkness darkening a summer sky, and wished I were a bird, high in that nothingness, vanishing. Haesten ~ Bernard Cornwell

Yeah. You know what that sounds like. You'd know it if you ~ Patricia Cornwell

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

So, in the morning light, where they flapped in the drying wind, the bear and the star defied the Saxons. ~ Bernard Cornwell

A battle in the shield wall. It's smelling your enemy's breath while he tries to disembowel you with an axe, it's blood and shit and screams and pain and terror. It's trampling in your friends' guts as enemies butcher them. It's men clenching their teeth so hard they shatter them. Have you ever been in a battle? ~ Bernard Cornwell

There is such joy in a good ship, and a greater joy to have the ship's belly fat with other men's silver. It is the Viking joy, driving a dragon-headed hull through a wind-driven sea towards a future full of feasts and laughter. The Danes taught me that and I love them for it. ~ Bernard Cornwell

We create our own worlds. We destroy our own worlds. It is that simple.. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Obviously people read the books in order to be entertained. ~ Patricia Cornwell

I'm always surprised when large numbers of people buy my books. ~ Patricia Cornwell

If the Danes come," he spoke to Wulfhere, "you must let me fight."
"You don't know how to fight."
"Then you must teach me." He slid Serpent-Breath back into the scabbard. "Wessex needs a king who can fight," he said, "instead of pray. ~ Bernard Cornwell

It is not difficult to be a lord, a jarl, or even a king, but it is difficult to be a leader.
Most men want to follow, and what they demand of their leader is prosperity. We are the ring-givers, the gold-givers. We give land, we give silver, we give slaves, but that alone is not enough. They must be led. Leave men standing or sitting for days at a time and they get bored, and bored men make trouble. They must be surprised and challenged, given tasks they think beyond their abilities. And they must fear. A leader who is not feared will cease to rule, but fear is not enough. They must love too. When a man has been led into the shield wall, when an enemy is roaring defiance, when the blades are clashing on shields, when the soil is about to be soaked in blood, when the ravens circle in wait for the offal of men, then a man who loves his leader will fight better than a man who merely fears him. At that moment we are brothers, we fight for each other, and a man must know that his leader will sacrifice his own life to save any one of his men.
I learned all that from Ragnar, a man who led with joy in his soul, though he was feared too. His great enemy, Kjartan, knew only how to lead by fear, and Ragnall was the same. Men who lead by fear might become great kings and might rule lands so great that no man knows their boundaries, but they can be beaten too, beaten by men who fight as brothers. ~ Bernard Cornwell

He's discovered the value," I said, "of murderous bastards like me, so perhaps he'll learn to distrust the advice of sniveling bastards like you who told him the Danes could be defeated by prayer. ~ Bernard Cornwell

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

We were three ships in a summer's dawn, and we were going to battle. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Every day is ordinary, until it isn't. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Who summons the dead man?" she asked. "A fresh corpse," Aethelwold said. "A fresh corpse?" I asked. "Someone must be sent to the world of the dead," he explained, as though it were obvious, "to find Bjorn and bring him back." "So they kill someone?" Gisela asked. "How else can they send a messenger to the dead?" Aethelwold asked pugnaciously. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I do the same with my books ... Nothing like a good argument in the margins with someone who's already said all they have to say on the subject. ~ Betsy Cornwell

She's what my mother used to call "plain," by which she meant an unremarkable-looking girl who was worse off than "the ugly ones." That's how she would say it, and her explanation for such a vile statement couldn't have been more logical. At least in her limited way of thinking, and also in Dorothy's because she shares the same point of view. Pretty girls don't try at all because they don't have to. Ugly girls try harder for obvious reasons. That leaves plain girls, which usually is synonymous with smart girls, and they need to try but don't know any better or can't be bothered. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Besides, as I have never tired of telling my Christian followers, we pagans rarely persecute Christians. We believe there are many gods, so we accept another man's religion as his own affair, while Christians, who perversely insist that there is only one god, think it their duty to kill, maim, enslave, or revile anyone who disagrees. They tell me this is for our own good. ~ Bernard Cornwell

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

You can't live somewhere," he told me, "if the people don't want you to be there. They can kill our cattle or poison our streams, and we would never know who did it. You either slaughter them all or learn to live with them. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I intended to beat down any lingering resistance with bluntness. ~ Patricia Cornwell

I know nothing about producing TV drama and any involvement on my part is liable to prove an obstacle to the producers, so I prefer to be a cheerleader and let them get on with it. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Absolute power has corrupted and the absence of checks and balances seems complete. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Rain slowly slides down the glass as if the night is crying. ~ Patricia Cornwell

My dear Lord,' I said, but not to him. I spoke to Arthur. And I watched and wept, my arm around Ceinwyn, as the pale boat was swallowed by the shimmering silver mist. And so my Lord was gone. And no one has seen him since. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I'm in pain all the time,' I said, 'and if I gave into it then I'd do nothing. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Shared, the pain was double, but only half so crippling. She couldn't bring herself to wish for the strenght to stand alone. ~ Betsy Cornwell

Everyone is doing forensics. ~ Patricia Cornwell

History is not just a tale of men's making, but is a thing tied to the land. We call a hill by the name of a hero who died there, or name a river after a princess who fled beside its banks, and when the old names vanish, the stories go with them and the new names carry no reminder of the past. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Some people should never be gone, and those that should hang around forever. ~ Patricia Cornwell

They're praying to ham bones, ham bones! The blessed pig! ~ Bernard Cornwell

Enemies come soon enough in a mans life,' he told me, 'you don't need to seek them out ~ Bernard Cornwell

I have learned that it is one thing to kill in battle, to send a brave man's soul to the corpse hall of the gods, but quite another to take a helpless man's life ... ~ Bernard Cornwell

My son smiled. "You taught me well, Father."
"What did I teach you?"
"That a spear-point in a prisoner's liver is a very persuasive thing. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Because the most treacherous enemy is the one you think you know and understand. The one you trust and love. The one whose darkness threatens your very light, the heart and soul of your very power, and you're none the wiser. Your subjectivity, your bias has rendered you blind, deaf, and dumb. You see what you want to see instead of what's there. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Phisoderm, not an inch spared, not the inside of my ears and nose, ~ Patricia Cornwell

Even be here,' Douglas snarled. The Scottish knights had been summoned by ~ Bernard Cornwell

I like crazy shoes or unusual cowboy boots and I collect big belt buckles. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Fight well," he said distantly, "and remember you are Englishmen!"
"Welshmen," someone intervened. Sir Roger visibly flinched at that and then, without another word, led his three men-at-arms from the church. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Once you love someone, part of you is bound forever. Perhaps you never see him again - perhaps your life is better without him, and it's right to be apart. But once you've loved him, the link is formed. You can ignore it, if you choose, but you cannot sever it. ~ Betsy Cornwell

You cannot command love, Lady, only beauty or lust does that. Do you want the world to be fair? Then just imagine a world with no kings, no queens, no lords, no passion and no magic. You would want to live in such a dull world? ~ Bernard Cornwell

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

When those blades cut, they cause tears that feed the well of Urdr that lies beside the world tree, and the well gives the water that keeps Yggdrasil alive, and if Yggdrasil dies then the world dies, and so the well must be kept filled and for that there must be tears. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Our government spies and lies. Those trusted to uphold and enforce the law use it to their advantage instead. ~ Patricia Cornwell

There was a time when papal encyclicals were treated as virtual pronouncements of papal infallibility. There are still a small minority of Catholics who cite Pope Paul VI's 1968 document Humanae Vitae - which outlawed artificial birth control - as the word of God. ~ John Cornwell

Did you become a Christian in your nunnery?' I asked her.
'Of course not.' she said scornfully.
'They didn't mind?'
'I gave them silver.'
'Then they didn't mind.' I said.
'I don't think any Dane is a real Christian.' she told me.
'Not even your brother?'
'We have many gods,' she said, 'and the Christian god is just another one. I'm sure that's what Guthred thinks. What's the Christian god's name? A nun did tell me, but I've forgotten.'
'Jehovah.'
There you are, then. Odin, Thor and Jehovah. Does he have a wife?'
'No.'
'Poor Jehovah.' she said. ~ Bernard Cornwell

St George!' the English shouted, but the saint must have been sleeping for he gave the attackers no help. ~ Bernard Cornwell

When God made the world he made the big plain just for the cavalry. It was firm, or would be when the sun had dried off the night's rain, and it was mostly level. The sabres could fall like scythes in the corn. The Arapiles, Greater and Lesser, God made for the gunners. From their summits, conveniently made flat so that the artillery could have a stable platform, the guns could dominate the plain. God had made nothing for the infantry, except a soil easily dug into graves, but the infantry were used to that. All ~ Bernard Cornwell

Then I will myself to feel nothing at all. It's not helpful to react the way a normal person would. I banish what will interfere with my clinical discipline and reason, I run it off and far away from me. After all these years I'm good at emptying myself out. ~ Patricia Cornwell

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

And in an odd way, realizing all this has given me an unexpected satisfaction and a little more self-respect. I have changed, and it's for the better. You really can't love unconditionally. People can burn and beat love out of you. They really can kill it, and it's not your fault you don't feel it anymore, and how liberating it is to finally realize that. Love isn't for better or for worse, through thick or thin. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Carpe Diem.
Seize the day.
Seize. The. Day.
Seize the day!
And why not?
Why stay here? Why not escape? The path is well trod, and I have my Maglite. Why sit around waiting for impending doom? (Or, at the very least, messy retribution.) You have no choice, Vassar. The water supply is almost depleted, and your life's hanging by the proverbial thread. Get going! ~ Autumn Cornwell

It was always the secrets that hurt us, wasn't it? Not the telling of them. ~ Betsy Cornwell

The General knew he would probably die, for infantry took pleasure in killing cavalry and he would be the leading horseman in the attack on the bridge, but the General was a soldier and he had long learned that a soldier's real enemy is the fear of death. Beat that fear and victory was certain, and victory brought glory and fame and medals and money and, best of all, sweetest of all, most glorious and wondrous of all, the modest teasing grin of a short black-haired Emperor who would pat the Dragoon General as though he was a faithful dog, and the thought of that Imperial favour made the General quicken his horse and raise his battered sword. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Some had hurled spears first. Those spears thumped into our shields, making them unwieldy, but it hardly mattered. The leading Danes tripped on the hidden timbers and the men behind pushed the falling men forward. I kicked one in the face, feeling my iron-reinforced boot crush bone. Danes were sprawling at our feet while others tried to get past their fallen comrades to reach our line, and we were killing. Two men succeeded in reaching us, despite the smoking barricade, and one of those two feel to Wasp-Sting coming up from beneath his shield-rim. He had been swinging an ax that the man behind me caught on his shield and the Dane was still holding the war ax's shaft as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I twisted the blade, ripping it upward, and as Cerdic, beside me, chopped his own ax down. The man with the crushed face was holding my ankle and I stabbed at him as the blood spray from Cerdic's ax blinded me. The whimpering man at my feet tried to crawl away, but Finan stabbed his sword into his thigh, then stabbed again. A Dane had hooked up his ax over the top rim of my shield and hauled it down to expose my body to a spear-thrust, but the ax rolled off the circular shield and the spear was deflected upward and I slammed Wasp-Sting forward again, felt her bite, twisted her, and Finan was keening his mad Irish song as he added his own blade to the slaughter. "Keep the shields to ~ Bernard Cornwell

Shun epic verse. ~ Bernard Cornwell

death can be liberating. ~ Patricia Cornwell

I had fired 9-millimeters before and didn't like them. they weren't as accurate as my .38 special. they weren't as safe, and they could jam. i had never been one to substitute quantity for quality, and there was no substitution for being informed and practiced ~ Patricia Cornwell

Crime reporting was aggressive in Richmond, an old Virginia city of 220,000, which last year was listed by the FBI as having the second-highest homicide rate ~ Patricia Cornwell

Of the stupidity of men there seems no end. ~ Bernard Cornwell

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 ~ Bernard Cornwell

That's one of the perks if you're sick. You already feel bad enough and then people make you feel worse because they don't want to bother you. ~ Patricia Cornwell

he who survives writes the rules. ~ Patricia Cornwell

And you can use that sword, Weland Godfredson?"
"As a woman can use her tongue, lord."
"You're that good, eh?" Ragnar asked, as ever unable to resist a jest. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Bishop Erkenwald, who ruled Lundene, had chided me, saying I should have named the ship for some Christian milksop saint, and he had presented me with a crucifix that he wanted me to nail to Seolferwulf 's mast, but instead I burned the wooden god and his wooden cross and mixed their ashes with crushed apples, that I fed to my two sows. I worship Thor. Now, ~ Bernard Cornwell

The sword was called Kaledvoulc'h, which means hard lightning, though Igraine prefers to call it Excaliber, and I shall call it so as well because Arthur never cared what name his longsword carried. Nor, did he care about his childhood, for certainly I never heard him speak of it. I once questioned him about his early days and he would not answer. "What is the egg to the eagle?" he asked me, then said that he had been born, he had lived, and he had become a soldier, and that was all I needed to know. ~ Bernard Cornwell

There, ahead of me, was the enemy.
I love the Danes. There are no better men to fight with, drink with, laugh with or live with. Yet that day, as on so many others of my life, they were the enemy and they waited for me in a gigantic shield wall arrayed across the down. There were thousands of Danes, Spear-Danes and Sword-Danes, Danes who had come to make this land theirs, and we had come to keep it ours. ~ Bernard Cornwell

the seventeenth-century saint, Margaret Marie Alacoque, a French nun of Parayle-Monial, who founded the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Margaret would deliberately eat cheese knowing that it made her vomit, and by her own admission she ate the vomit of sister nuns. ~ John Cornwell

Latin! The language of God! Or perhaps He speaks Hebrew? I suppose that's more likely and it will make things rather awkward in heaven, won't it? Will we all have to learn Hebrew? ~ Bernard Cornwell

It'll be an honour to serve you, sir," he added.
"In a French battalion?" Gudin teased him.
"If you don't flog, sir, and you don't carve up pricks, then it'll be more than an honour. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Nor did he care about his childhood, for certainly I never heard him speak of it. I once questioned him about his early days and he would not answer. 'What is the egg to the eagle?' he asked me… ~ Bernard Cornwell

Then, just as d'Alembord was about to sell his commission and retire to one of his prospective father-in-law's farms, Napoleon had returned to France. Colonel Ford, worried that he was losing his veteran Captain of skirmishers, had begged d'Alembord to stay for the impending campaign and implicit in the Colonel's plea was a promise that d'Alembord would receive the next vacant majority in the battalion. That enticement was sufficient. The captaincy would sell for fifteen hundred pounds which was a good enough fortune for any young man contemplating marriage, but a majority would fetch two thousand six hundred pounds, and so d'Alembord, with some misgivings, but reassured by the prospects of a fine marriage portion, had agreed to Ford's request. ~ Bernard Cornwell

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

So I woke, I listened, and I heard the small sounds of a wood at night, the things moving, the claws in the dead leaves, the wind's soft sighs. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Serpent-Breath was in my hand and anger in my soul. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I was screaming with joy because the battle calm had come, the same blessed stillness I had felt at Cynuit. It is a joy, that feeling, and the only other joy to compare is that of being with a woman.
It is as though life slows. The enemy moves as if he is wading in mud, but I was kingfisher fast. There is rage, but it is a controlled rage, and there is joy, the joy that the poets celebrate when they speak of battle, and a certainty that death is not in that day's fate. My head was full of singing, a keening note, high and shrill, death's anthem. All I wanted was for more Danes to come to SerpentBreath and it seemed to me that she took on her own life in those moments. ~ Bernard Cornwell

A search through Whistler's correspondence, now online at the University of Glasgow, paints a portrait of a relationship that at times was volatile, with Sickert swinging from sycophantic to offended and defensive. Whistler's ~ Patricia Cornwell

I'm very, very sensitive to pain and to people who suffer. ~ Patricia Cornwell

To be discreet, '"he looked up to glare at Aethelflaed, "'chaste! Keepers of the home! Good! Obedient to their husbands!' Those are God's own words! That is what God demands of a woman! To be discreet, to be chaste, to be home-keepers, to be obedient! God spoke to us! ~ Bernard Cornwell

Eddie Heath had come in naked with IV needles, catheter, and dressings still in place. They ~ Patricia Cornwell

Ranks of men on foot, men with shields, men with weapons, a shield wall that was meant to awe us, and it did.
A shield wall is a terrible thing. It is a wall of wood, iron, and steel with one purpose alone, to kill.
And this shield wall was massive, a wall of painted round shields stretching wide across the ridge's flat top, and above it were the banners of the jarls, chieftains, and kings who had come to kill us. ~ Bernard Cornwell

been ignited by loose talk, by leaks," Amburgey went on, "the fact the city ~ Patricia Cornwell

We had to fight, because to decline battle was a defeat. ~ Bernard Cornwell

He'll fight like a bull,' I said, 'and he's honest. But does he think like a wildcat? ~ Bernard Cornwell

Well damn him. I was not dead yet, and so long as I lived I would fight for Aethelflaed. ~ Bernard Cornwell

People often say they don't dream, when it's more accurate to say that they don't remember their dreams. It gets under our skin, Kay. All of it does. We just manage to cage in most of the emotions so they don't devour us. ~ Patricia Cornwell

An English man-at-arms had his helmet split open and his skull with it, so that he rode wavering from the fight, blood pouring down his mail coat. His horse stopped a few paces from the turmoil and the man-at-arms slowly, so slowly, bent forward and then slumped down from his saddle. One foot was trapped in a stirrup as he died but his horse did not seem to notice. It just went on cropping the grass. ~ Bernard Cornwell

He sang the song of the sword, keening as he fed his blade, and Rollo, standing thigh-deep in the creek, ax swinging in murderous blows, blocked the enemy's escape. The Frisians, transported from confidence to bowel-loosening fear, began to drop their weapons. ~ Bernard Cornwell

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

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

I am not sure,' Mordecai told Thomas, 'whether omens can be trusted.'
'Of course they can.'
'I should like to hear your reasons. But show me your urine first.'
'You said I was cured,' Thomas protested. 'Eternal vigilance, dear Thomas, is the price of health. Piss for me. ~ Bernard Cornwell

The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I don't fight old men, he said. That was strange. No one had ever called me old before. I remember laughing, but there was shock behind my laughter. Weeks before, talking with Aethelflaed, I had mocked her because she was staring at her face in a great silver platter. She was worried because she had lines about her eyes and she had responded to my mockery by thrusting the plate at me, and I had looked at my reflection and seen that my beard was gray. I remember staring at it as she laughed at me, and I did not feel old even though my wounded leg could be treacherously stiff. Was that how people saw me? As an old man? Yet I was forty-five years old that year, so yes, I was an old man. ~ Bernard Cornwell

My sword," I told him, "says I tell the truth, and that you are a stinking bag of wind, a liar from hell, a cheat and a perjurer who deserves death."
"Up to our arses again," Leofric said. ~ Bernard Cornwell