Top 100 Bernard Cornwell Quotes
#1. Why did I choose to fight him? He was going to die whether I fought him or not, and he was dangerous, half my age and a warrior. But it is reputation, always reputation. Pride, I suppose, is the most treacherous of virtues.
Bernard Cornwell
#2. You know why farts smell?" "I don't." "So the deaf can enjoy them too.
Bernard Cornwell
#3. It is hard to force obedience," he said, "without encouraging resentment.
Bernard Cornwell
#4. 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
#5. Harlequin, probably derived from the old French Hellequin: a troop of the devil's horsemen.
Bernard Cornwell
#6. 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.
Bernard Cornwell
#7. Am I to deny Mark justice because he is old and gross and ugly? Do youth and beauty deserve perverted justice? What have I fought for all these years, if not to make certain that justice is even-handed?
Bernard Cornwell
#8. The art of war," I told him, "is to make the enemy do your bidding.
Bernard Cornwell
#9. Is all ordained? Foreknowledge is not fate, and we may choose our paths, yet fate says we may not choose them. So if fate is real, do we have a choice?
Bernard Cornwell
#10. I wondered why the gods no longer came to earth. It would make belief so much easier.
Bernard Cornwell
#11. Once upon a time, in a land that was called Britain, these things happened.
Bernard Cornwell
#12. 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
#13. If a man can't remember the laws," Ragnar said, "then he's got too many of them.
Bernard Cornwell
#14. This was a clever man, as clever as Alfred, and he knew that weakness invited war.
Bernard Cornwell
#15. I was hated, and I knew it. Part of it was my fault, I am arrogant.
Bernard Cornwell
#16. We were the wolf pack, we were the killers of Britain, we had fought from the south coast of Wessex to the northern wilds, from the ocean to the sea, and we had never been beaten, and these men knew it.
Bernard Cornwell
#17. Ignored Truslow, trusting instead in the Colonel's largesse.
Bernard Cornwell
#18. If the leader is a good man he will be liked and if he's not, he won't, and if he is a good man and a bad leader then he is better off dead.
Bernard Cornwell
#19. What happens to you, Uhtred, is what you make happen. You will grow, you will learn the sword, you will learn the way of the shield wall, you will learn the oar, you will give honor to the gods, and then you will use what you have learned to make your life good or bad.
Bernard Cornwell
#20. The sight of that loveliness was enough to drive all sense from a man's head.
Bernard Cornwell
#21. Ravn had given me much advice and all of it was good, but now, in the night wind, I remembered just one thing he had said to me on the night we first met, something I had never forgotten.
Never, he had said, never fight Ubba.
Bernard Cornwell
#22. The Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He
Bernard Cornwell
#23. Someone wise, I forget who, said we must leave our children to fate.
Bernard Cornwell
#24. There is a greater war, Uhtred. Not the fight between Saxon and Dane, but between God and the devil, between good and evil! We are part of it!
Bernard Cornwell
#25. Does that girl work here?' Robbie asked, gesturing at the screen behind which Mary had disappeared. 'All her life,' Sir Giles said. 'You remember Mary, Thomas?' 'I tried to drown her when we were both children,' Thomas said.
Bernard Cornwell
#26. Most folk consider that a woman aboard a ship brings nothing but bad luck because it provokes the jealousy of Ran, the goddess of the sea who will abide no rivals,
Bernard Cornwell
#27. 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.
Bernard Cornwell
#28. Thinking of her, he felt a sudden longing inside him. She had the face of a hawk, slim and cruel, with dark hair and eyes. Teresa was beautiful as a fine sword was beautiful; slim and hard.
Bernard Cornwell
#29. 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
#30. I was without a lord. I was outcast. I was free. I was going Viking. There
Bernard Cornwell
#31. 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
#32. You're the son of a king,' I told him, 'and one day you might be a king yourself. Life and death will be your gifts, so learn how to give them, boy.
Bernard Cornwell
#33. And I looked,' Pyrlig said to me, 'and I saw a pale horse, and the rider's name was death.' I just stared in amazement. 'It's in the gospel book,' he explained sheepishly, 'and it just cam to mind.
Bernard Cornwell
#34. It was an unsettling thought, that somehow we were sliding back into the smoky dark and that never again would man make something so perfect as this small building.
Bernard Cornwell
#35. 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.
Bernard Cornwell
#36. St George!' the English shouted, but the saint must have been sleeping for he gave the attackers no help.
Bernard Cornwell
#37. He was a hard man, but what else would he be? He had stood in the shield wall, he had watched the Danes come to the attack, and he had lived. He was no youngster.
Bernard Cornwell
#38. The Lord Uhtred sought to annoy you, bishop," the king said, "and it is best not to give him the satisfaction of showing that he has succeeded.
Bernard Cornwell
#39. Tomorrow!" he said suddenly. His voice was high, but it carried clearly enough. "Tomorrow we fight! Tomorrow! The Feast of St John the Apostle!"
"Oh God," Leofric grumbled next to me, "up to our arsholes in more saints.
Bernard Cornwell
#40. 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
#41. Well damn him. I was not dead yet, and so long as I lived I would fight for Aethelflaed.
Bernard Cornwell
#42. 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
#43. A three-day-old baby is a saint?'
Willibald flapped his hands. 'Miracles happen, lord,' he said, 'they really do. They say little Rumwold sang God's praises whenever he suckled.'
'I feel much the same when I get hild of a tit,' I said, 'so does that make me a saint?
Bernard Cornwell
#46. I touched Thor's hammer, then Serpent-Breath's hilt, for death was stalking us. God help me, I thought, touching the hammer again, Thor help us all, for I did not think we could win.
Bernard Cornwell
#47. The wheel of fortune that had once raised her so high had taken her into the utter depths.
Bernard Cornwell
#48. I could hardly see him in the darkness, but knew he wore a leather jerkin and had a sword at his side. The rest of us were in leather and mail, had helmets, and carried shields, axes, swords, or spears. Tonight we would kill. Sihtric,
Bernard Cornwell
#49. So sanity is not a requisite of soldiering,' Wellesley said quietly.
Bernard Cornwell
#50. Tomorrow," he shouted, "you do not fight for me! I fight for you! I fight for Wessex! I fight for your wives, for your children and your homes! Tomorrow we fight and, I swear to you on my father's grave and on my children's lives, tomorrow we shall win!
Bernard Cornwell
#51. And we screamed. We screamed our war cry, our shout of slaughter, our joy of being men in battle who are driven by terror.
Bernard Cornwell
#54. He was watching my eyes. A man who uses a sword with lethal skill always matches his opponent's eyes.
Bernard Cornwell
#55. Our ancestors took this land. They took it and made it and held it. We do not give up what our ancestors gave us. They came across the sea and they fought here, and they built here and they're buried here. This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!
Bernard Cornwell
#57. So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries.
Bernard Cornwell
#58. The Immortals were about to engage the Impregnable. The unbeaten would fight the unbeatable.
Bernard Cornwell
#59. A trial relied heavily on oaths, but both sides would bring as many liars as they could muster, and judgment usually went to the better liars or, if both sides were equally convincing, to the side who had the sympathy of the onlookers.
Bernard Cornwell
#60. His charms worked, for though the bullets flicked close none hit him. He was the tiger of Mysore, he could not die, only kill.
Bernard Cornwell
#61. 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
#62. And you look bloody young to be a sergeant"
"I was born late, sir
Bernard Cornwell
#63. 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
#65. The only purpose a Council serves is to make you all feel important.
Bernard Cornwell
#66. The sword was called Caledfwlch, which means 'hard lightning' though Igraine prefers to call it Excalibur
Bernard Cornwell
#67. We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation.
Bernard Cornwell
#68. The crews of the Viking ships are Danish, Norse, Frisian, and Saxon.
Bernard Cornwell
#69. Start your killers young, before their consciences are grown. Start them young and they will be lethal.
Bernard Cornwell
#70. The spinners were watching me, waiting, needles poised, and unless I did their bidding then my fate would be failure.
Bernard Cornwell
#71. Children born to unwed mothers,' he said after a long silence, 'have parts of their souls missing.
Bernard Cornwell
#72. 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
#73. Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.
Bernard Cornwell
#74. And yes, there's a simplicity to writing books because you're not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee.
Bernard Cornwell
#75. He knew you were a warrior. He called you a brute. He said you were like a dog that attacks a bull. You had no fear because you had no sense.
Bernard Cornwell
#76. Because there could not be peace, not while two tribes shared one land. One tribe must win. Even the nailed god cannot change that truth. And I was a warrior, and in a world at war the warrior must be cruel.
Bernard Cornwell
#77. I was born a Saxon, but raised by Danes, my daughter had married a Norseman, my dearest friend was Irish, my woman was a Saxon, the mother of my children had been Danish, my gods were pagan, and my oath was sworn to AEthelflaed, a Christian. Whose side was I on?
Bernard Cornwell
#78. 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
#79. Idle men make mischief, especially idle men supplied with ale, whores, and weapons.
Bernard Cornwell
#81. Why do they put cows over the gates, sir?"
"For the same reason we put images of a tortured man in our churches. Religion. You ask too many questions, Sharpe.
Bernard Cornwell
#82. When a man must choose between nothing and everything he has small choice.
Bernard Cornwell
#83. why prefer a god who wants you to torture yourself instead of worshipping Eostre who wants you to take a girl into the woods and make babies?
Bernard Cornwell
#84. At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.
Bernard Cornwell
#86. 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.
Bernard Cornwell
#88. Some mothers soften their sons, but Osbert was motherless and I had raised him hard because a man must be hard. The world is filled with enemies.
Bernard Cornwell
#89. An army isn't made of its officers, you know, though we officers like to think it is. An army is no better than its men, and when you find good men, you must look after them. That's an officer's job.
Bernard Cornwell
#90. Laughter in battle. That was what Ragnar had taught me, to take joy from the fight.
Bernard Cornwell
#92. 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
#93. I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.
Bernard Cornwell
#94. That man is my Arthur, a great warlord and a hero who fought against impossible odds to such effect that even fifteen hundred years later his enemies love and revere his memory.
Bernard Cornwell
#96. Looking back, of course, it was irresponsible, mad, forlorn, idiotic, but if you don't take chances then you'll never have a winning hand, and I've no regrets.
Bernard Cornwell
#98. How anyone could endure three or four hours of chanting monks and ranting priests was beyond my understanding, just as it was beyond my understanding to know why bishops needed thrones. They would be demanding crowns next.
Bernard Cornwell
#99. Some Gods are wicked, Derfel. And besides, they have no duty to us, only we to them. Maybe it amused them?
Bernard Cornwell
#100. Someone, I thought, knew where Ice-Spite was hidden. And I would find her.
Bernard Cornwell
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