Top 100 Cornwell Quotes
#1. Tides is a rich, taut, suspenseful, and funny exploration of two worlds, selkie and human. It's full of mystery but it's also so fully imagined that a reader can jump right in. Betsy Cornwell is a terrific new talent with a boundless imagination.
Valerie Sayers
#2. Michael Connelly's Series Order Diana Gabaldon's Series Order Patricia Cornwell's Series Order Fern Michael's Series Order Robert Ludlum's Series Order Harlan Coben's Series Order Terry Pratchett's Series Order J.A. Jance's Series Order Tom Clancy's
A.J. Stone
#3. The real difference between literature and pulp is the kind of emotional responses they elicit. Dan Brown can't pierce your heart. Patricia Cornwell can't make you read a sentence twice and then look sightlessly out of the window.
Peter Temple
#4. Sarah Cornwell has a brilliant eye for the telling detail, and a wonderfully original way of embodying family history. I was captivated by her memorable characters and the perfectly paced revelations of their surprising relationships.
Andrea Barrett
#6. 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
#7. 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
#8. 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
#9. 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
#10. 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
#11. Children born to unwed mothers,' he said after a long silence, 'have parts of their souls missing.
Bernard Cornwell
#12. The spinners were watching me, waiting, needles poised, and unless I did their bidding then my fate would be failure.
Bernard Cornwell
#13. Shut up, cowboy."
Yes, ma'am."
And give me a kiss."
Yes, ma'am.
Autumn Cornwell
#14. Like every other mortal who has ever been touched by suicide, I had the fallacious belief that I could have done something to stop it.
Patricia Cornwell
#15. Start your killers young, before their consciences are grown. Start them young and they will be lethal.
Bernard Cornwell
#16. My fans want me to talk to them. And even if they want to be critical, I want to hear what they've got to say.
Patricia Cornwell
#17. The crews of the Viking ships are Danish, Norse, Frisian, and Saxon.
Bernard Cornwell
#18. 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
#19. In the animal kingdom, lions, tigers and bears - the predators - have closely spaced eyes. Giraffes, rabbits, doves - the preyed upon - have eyes more widely spaced and oriented toward the sides of their heads, because they need their peripheral vision to survive.
Patricia Cornwell
#20. The sword was called Caledfwlch, which means 'hard lightning' though Igraine prefers to call it Excalibur
Bernard Cornwell
#21. The only purpose a Council serves is to make you all feel important.
Bernard Cornwell
#22. 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
#23. 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
#24. And you look bloody young to be a sergeant"
"I was born late, sir
Bernard Cornwell
#25. 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
#27. 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
#28. 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
#29. The Immortals were about to engage the Impregnable. The unbeaten would fight the unbeatable.
Bernard Cornwell
#30. 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
#31. I don't believe for a minute that the Ripper killed only the prostitutes we hear about - five and only five.
Patricia Cornwell
#33. Absolute power has corrupted and the absence of checks and balances seems complete.
Patricia Cornwell
#34. 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
#35. That's why I think the 'Scarpetta' series has worked so well because people like spending time with this character.
Patricia Cornwell
#36. He was watching my eyes. A man who uses a sword with lethal skill always matches his opponent's eyes.
Bernard Cornwell
#38. No one good or evil ceases to exist; life is energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed; it is recycled. Therefore, it is possible that the pure of heart and the purely evil have been here before and will be here again.
Patricia Cornwell
#39. Our government spies and lies. Those trusted to uphold and enforce the law use it to their advantage instead.
Patricia Cornwell
#40. Peter Breggin, an American psychiatrist, had been criticising SSRIs since the early 1990s. He wrote 'Talking Back to Prozac' (1995) to repudiate psychiatrist Peter Kramer's 'Listening to Prozac' (1993) - a bestseller which claimed that Prozac made patients 'better than well.'
John Cornwell
#42. When there's lightning, don't stand alone or think you'll be protected by hiding in the trees. Find the nearest ditch and lie as low in it as you can.
Patricia Cornwell
#44. Someone, I thought, knew where Ice-Spite was hidden. And I would find her.
Bernard Cornwell
#45. Some Gods are wicked, Derfel. And besides, they have no duty to us, only we to them. Maybe it amused them?
Bernard Cornwell
#46. 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
#48. 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
#50. 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
#51. The body was not yet fully rigorous and was still slightly warm as I began swabbing any area that a washcloth might have missed. I
Patricia Cornwell
#52. I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.
Bernard Cornwell
#53. 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
#55. Laughter in battle. That was what Ragnar had taught me, to take joy from the fight.
Bernard Cornwell
#56. 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
#58. 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
#59. A dramatic public display, Kay. The dam began to crumble with Columbine. It's not new, just the classification is. People have become addicted to attention, to fame. Profoundly disturbed individuals will kill and die for it.
Patricia Cornwell
#60. For that matter I didn't understand Civil War reenactments. Why would you celebrate the biggest thing you ever lost? I quickly learned not to give voice to such skepticisms, and when asked if I was a Yankee I said I didn't follow baseball closely. That usually shut the person up.
Patricia Cornwell
#62. Manchester United have risen to the pinnacle of the English game at a time when the rewards are so high - thanks to the ticket to the Champions League - that they have resources that only a handful of other sides, through merit or the exploitation of the people of Russia, can approach.
Phil Cornwell
#63. 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
#65. At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.
Bernard Cornwell
#66. Whatever can be used for good most assuredly will be used for evil.
Patricia Cornwell
#67. 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
#68. When a man must choose between nothing and everything he has small choice.
Bernard Cornwell
#69. 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
#70. I dropped chemistry. I practically blew up the lab in college.
Patricia Cornwell
#72. The issue of the environment as seen by Pope Francis is not a matter of purely scientific or, indeed, theological debate: it involves economic and political views on how the world's poor can be brought out of poverty while protecting the environment.
John Cornwell
#73. What the hell. You die. Everybody dies. So you die healthy. So what?
Patricia Cornwell
#74. Idle men make mischief, especially idle men supplied with ale, whores, and weapons.
Bernard Cornwell
#75. 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
#76. 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
#77. 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
#78. 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
#79. 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
#81. Someone wise, I forget who, said we must leave our children to fate.
Bernard Cornwell
#82. 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
#83. The Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He
Bernard Cornwell
#84. 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
#85. The sight of that loveliness was enough to drive all sense from a man's head.
Bernard Cornwell
#86. 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
#87. 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
#88. Ignored Truslow, trusting instead in the Colonel's largesse.
Bernard Cornwell
#89. When what we believe we've mastered is no longer predictable we're not fine. The world suddenly is a very scary place. It loses its charm.
Patricia Cornwell
#90. No, Lucy. Your mother doesn't really love men. They are a symptom of her obsessive quest of finding somebody who will make her whole. She doesn't understand that she has to make herself whole.
Patricia Cornwell
#91. With DNA, the ability to find out a lot more with a lot less has increased our ability for identification.
Patricia Cornwell
#92. When your heart is broken, it's easier to follow rules
Betsy Cornwell
#93. 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
#94. I was hated, and I knew it. Part of it was my fault, I am arrogant.
Bernard Cornwell
#95. 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
#96. I had no idea how one day could contain so much happiness and despair at once.
Betsy Cornwell
#97. If a man can't remember the laws," Ragnar said, "then he's got too many of them.
Bernard Cornwell
#98. 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
#99. Once upon a time, in a land that was called Britain, these things happened.
Bernard Cornwell
#100. I wondered why the gods no longer came to earth. It would make belief so much easier.
Bernard Cornwell
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