Quotes from Bernard Cornwell

We make oaths, we make choices, but fate makes our decisions.

Alfred was obsessed by order, obsessed by the task of marshaling life's chaos into something that could be controlled. He would do it by the church and by the law, which are much the same thing, but I wanted to see a pattern in the strands of life. In the end I found one, and it had nothing to do with any god, but with people. With the people we love.

Children are easily swayed by religion, which is why it is a good thing that most eventually grow into sense. Chanting monks led the procession, then came children with green boughs, more monks, a group of abbots and bishops, then Steapa and fifty men of the royal guard, who walked immediately in front of Alfred and his guests.

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.

I should never have confessed my rank, I thought. Better to be a living slave than a dead ealdorman.

You must have faith. Miracles make belief easy, which is why you should never pray for one. Much better to find God through faith than through miracles.

Yet to complain of the world's unfairness was the same as grumbling that the sun was hot or that the wind sometimes changed its direction. Unfairness existed, it always had and it always would, and the miracle, to Sharpe's eyes, was that some men like Hill and Wellesley, though they had become wealthy and privileged through unfair advantages, were nevertheless superb at what they did.

Imbecille? - Certo. E sul fatto che sia un imbecille non possono esserci dubbi. Pensaci un attimo! Lancillotto vive, Mordred vive, Cerdic vive e Ginevra vive! Se qualcuno vuole vivere in eterno a questo mondo, la soluzione migliore è diventare nemico di Artù.

All that was needed to get ahead in the world was a bit of sense and the ability to kick a bastard faster than the bastard could kick you, and Richard Sharpe reckoned he had those talents right enough.

Your mother didn't give birth to you, I told hint, but farted you out of her shrivelled arsehole. Frightened or not, Asser said, you've taken Peredur's silver, so you must fight them now. Say one more word, monk, I said, and I'll cut off your scrawny balls.

A man who loves his daughter does not let her go into Wales.

Abel Becket had never seen as much of his wife's breasts as Mrs. Loring saw fit to present to the world.

I suspect most copies were used to wipe arses or light fires.

Cnut Longsword had near killed me with his blade Ice-Spite and it was small consolation that Serpent-Breath had sliced his throat in the same heartbeat that his sword had broken a rib and pierced my lung.

Read­ing is use­ful,' Pyrlig said.

Às vezes acho que é preciso ser extremamente imbecil para ser um santo.

So she needs a man! Hakeswill said. And a sergeant's widow doesn't get rogered by a stinking bit of dirt like you. It ain't right. Ain't natural. It's beneath her station, Sharpie, and it can't be allowed. Says so in the scriptures.

He's a boy who must learn to be a warrior and a king,' I said, 'and death is his destiny. He must learn to give it.' I patted Æthelstan's shoulder. 'Make it quick, boy,' I told him. 'He deserves a slow death, but this is your first killing. Make it easy for yourself.

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

Win your war, Lord Uhtred, he said, then take her away from us priests and give her lots of children. She'll be happy, and one day she'll be truly wise. That's the women's real gift, to be wise, and not many men have it.

Many folk are clever, lord Uhtred, but very few are wise.

Do you know who wins battles, boy?" "We do, Father." "The side that is least drunk," he said, and then, after a pause, "but it helps to be drunk." "Why?" "Because a shield wall is an awful place." He gazed into the fire. "I have been in six shield walls," he went on, "and prayed every time it would be the last.

The Gods play games with us, but if we open ourselves then we can become a part of the game instead of its victims.

An enemy sees his attackers laughing? It is better than all the insults. A man who laughs as he goes into battle is a man who has confidence, and a man with confidence is terrifying to an enemy. "For the whore!" I shouted.