Quotes from Bernard Cornwell

I had thought about Alban for a while. "Why," I had then asked, "if your god can pull out a man's eyes, didn't he just save Alban's life?" "Because God chose not to, of course!" Beocca had answered sniffily, which is just the kind of answer you always get when you ask a Christian priest to explain another inexplicable act of their god.

Madness has a purpose! It's a gift from the Gods, and like all their gifts it comes with a price

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

They smile and sing their psalms and preach that their creed is all about love, but tell them you believe in a different god and suddenly it's all spittle and spite.

Guinefort had been a dog and, so far as Thomas's father knew, the only animal ever to be canonized. The beast had saved a baby from a wolf, then been martyred by his owner, who thought the dog had eaten the baby when in truth he had hidden it beneath the cot.

Lord Derfel, you do insult a man so very easily. What was it to be? My head in a pit dunged by slaves? What a paltry imagination you do have. Mine, I fear, sometimes seems excessive, even to me.

Wyrd bið ful ?ræd," I said, and that is true. Fate is inexorable. Destiny is all. We make oaths, we make choices, but fate makes our decisions.

The god had to be nailed to a cross if he was to become their saviour, and then the Christians blame the man who made that death possible. I thought they should worship him as a saint, but instead they revile him as a betrayer.

The only purpose a Council serves is to make you all feel important.

Doubt weakens the will.

Every day is ordinary, until it isn't." ? Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

The shield wall reeks of shit, and all a man wants is to be home, to be anywhere but on this field that prepares for battle, but none of us will turn and run or else we will be despised for ever. We pretend we want to be there, and when the wall at last advances, step by step, and the heart is thumping fast as a bird's wing beating, the world seems unreal.

Take a man who has failed at everything, give him a final chance, show him trust, lead him to one success, and there is a sudden confidence that will lead to the next success. Soon they will believe they are unbeatable, and become unbeatable

And Eoferwic, I thought, was where my story had all begun. Where my father had died. Where I had become the Lord of Bebbanburg. Where I had met Ragnar and learned of the ancient gods.

You're a Christian? Of course! You believe in miracles? I asked, and he nodded. Then you'd better fetch your five loaves and two fishes, I went on, and pray that your wretched god provides the rest.

I hated his religion and its cold disapproving gaze, its malevolence that cloaked itself in pretended kindness, and its allegiance to a god who would drain the joy from the world by naming it sin

He loved you, I protested. She stared at me and I thought she was about to erupt into a blistering anger, but instead she smiled wanly. He worshipped me, Derfel, she said tiredly, and that is not the same thing as being loved.

and Ravn recited a long poem about some ancient hero who killed a monster and then the monster's mother who was even more fearsome than her son, but I was too drunk to remember much of it. And

the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws.

Due re saliranno alla Rocca di Cadarn - profetizzò - ma a regnare sarà un uomo che non è re. I morti si sposeranno, quel che è perso ritornerà alla luce. e una lama verrà portata alla gola di una bambina.

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

Yet a little country in a big land has a small future. I knew that. To our north was Constantine's Alba, which we called Scotland, and Constantine feared the Saxons to our south. The Saxons and the Scots were both Christians, and Christians tell us that their god is love, and we must love one another and turn the other cheek, but when land is at stake those beliefs fly away and swords are drawn.

We don't build,' I said to my son, 'we just destroy.

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.