Quotes from Bernard Cornwell

These word-stringers make nothing, grow nothing, kill no enemies, catch no fish and raise no cattle. They just take silver in exchange for words, which are free anyway. It is a clever trick, but in truth they are about as much use as priests.

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.

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…

A lord who does not distribute wealth is a lord who will lose the allegiance of his men

It was the year 878, I was twenty-one years old and believed my swords could win me the whole world. I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the man who had killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside the sea and who had spilled Svein of the White Horse from his saddle at Ethandun. I was the man who had given Alfred his kingdom back and I hated him. So I would leave him. My path was the sword-path, and it would take me home. I would go north.

And then I had ridden from the east in the glory of a warrior, which is what I am and always have been. All my life I have followed the path of the sword. Given a choice, and I have been given many choices, I would rather draw a blade than settle an argument with words, for that is what a warrior does, but most men and women are not fighters.

It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.' Napoleon

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.

Everything ends. Summer ends. Happiness ends. Days of joy are followed by days of sorrow. Even the gods will meet their end in the last battle of Ragnarok when all the evil of the world brings chaos and the sun will turn dark, the black waters will drown the homes of men, and the great beamed hall of Valhalla will burn to ashes. Everything ends.

Pyrlig laughed. "Being alive is bad in a Christian! We say people are saints if they're good, but how few of us become saints? We're all bad! Some of us just try to be good.

In breve, eravamo soddisfatti, e il destino è sempre stato nemico della soddisfazione. Il destino inoltre, come mi aveva sempre detto Merlino, è inesorabile.

Next time we fight the Danes you'll be with me. You? Because we are warriors, I said, and our job is to kill our enemies, not be nursemaids to weaklings.

Se gli uomini possono comprare la legge, diceva sempre Artù, allora la legge diventa inutile.

Stow all the world's evils behind a door and tell men that they must never, ever, open the door, and it will be opened because there is pure joy in destruction.

Writing is a solitary occupation.

There is no cause so hopeless, no creed so mad, no idea so ludicrous that it will not attract some believers

The world began in chaos and it will end in chaos. The gods brought the world into existence, and they will end it when they fight among themselves, but in between the chaos of the world's birth and the chaos of the world's death is order, and order is made by oaths, and oaths bind us like the buckles of a harness.

Il tempo è una storia e io voglio essere colui che la racconta, non colui che la crea.

I stood on the dead horse and spread my arms. I held the shield high to my left and the sword to my right, and my mail coat was spattered with blood and the snow fell about my wolf-crested helmet and all I knew was the young man's joy of slaughter. I killed Ubba Lothbrokson! I shouted at them. I killed him! So come and join him! Taste his death! My sword wants you!

Sharpe is the epitome of a nineteenth-century, romantic working-class hero. Cool, flash and fragrant … Escape and enjoy' Daily Express

You do know what happens at Easter!" Ceolnoth demanded sternly. "Of course I know," I said, "we make babies." "That is the most ridiculous..." Ceolberht began to protest, then went silent when his brother glared at him. "It's my favourite feast," I continued happily. "Easter is baby-making day!

I would hear him screaming, I would watch him bleed, I would tear his flesh piece by piece before I would worry about Æthelflaed. This was family. This was revenge.

certainly strip him of his petty

Till time ended, Baird suspected, there would be uses for a man and his sword. He