Quotes from Bernard Cornwell

British Rail is some kind of joke, right? They just pretend to run a railroad? Is that right? Anyway

They had marched all the soldiers' miles together, and now their ways parted. They would promise reunion, but such promises were so rarely kept.

I envy your Christian God. He is three and He is one, He is dead and He is alive, He is everywhere and He is nowhere, and He demands that you worship Him, but claims nothing else is worthy of worship. There's room in those contradictions for a man to believe in anything or nothing

and the rumor was believed because truth is ever feeble against passionate falsehood.

The law says I own that land, and the law, we are told, is what makes us men under God instead of beasts in the ditch.

So Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld would decide our fate. They are not kindly women, indeed they are monstrous and malevolent hags, and Skuld's shears are sharp. When those blades cut, they cause tears that feed the well of Urðr 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. We cry so that the world can live.

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.

Quando um inimigo quer conversar significa que não quer lutar.

Mais tarde, muito mais tarde, aprendi que a alegria e o medo são exatamente a mesma coisa.

So long as there is war there will be warlords. Leaders. What makes a man follow a leader? Success. A warrior wants victory, he wants silver, he wants land, and he looks to his lords for all those things.

Clever doesn't win battles -Stupidity loses them.

He smiled at Stiorra. "I am the Jarl Sigtryggr Ivarson, and you are?" "Stiorra Uhtredsdottir," she said. "And I took you to be a goddess," he answered.

The square would end with a huddle of bloodied men around the colors and the enemy would fall on them and for a few moments it would be steel against steel, and the sergeant reckoned he would give the flag to a wounded man and do what harm he could with the heavy, long-shafted axe. It was a pity to die, but he was a soldier, and no one had yet devised a way a man could live for ever, not even those clever bastards in Edinburgh.

He had collapsed in pain at his wedding, though that might have been the horror of realizing what he was marrying

Choose your battles,' I snarled at Æthelstan. 'That space between your ears was given so that you can think! If you just charge whenever you see an enemy you'll earn yourself an early grave.' Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg

The sun shone on us, the water sparkled, the oar-blades dipped and we were gone. Gone to make history.

Trinity Royal, which was being nuzzled by a dozen small launches nosing into her flank like piglets suckling on a sow.

It never occurred to me that they might not accept it, yet looking back I am astonished that the battle of Cynuit was fought according to the idea of a twenty-year-old who had never stood in a slaughter wall. Yet I was tall, I was a lord, I had grown up among warriors, and I had the arrogant confidence of a man born to battle. I am Uhtred, son of Uhtred, son of another Uhtred, and we had not held Bebbanburg and its lands by whimpering at altars. We are warriors.

If we do nothing then Wessex will spread like a plague. There'll be priests everywhere." We seek the future. We stare into its fog and hope to see a landmark that will make sense of fate.

My father still has two eyes," Stiorra said. "But not as beautiful as yours, my lady." "Did you come to waste our time?" Stiorra asked. "Or did you wish to surrender?" "To you, my lady, I would surrender all I have, but my men? You can count?" "I can count." "We outnumber you.

I had never thought it all through before, but suddenly, on that cold day, I understood that among the Danes I was as important as my friends, and without friends I was just another landless, masterless warrior. But among the Saxons I was another Saxon, and among the Saxons I did not need another man's generosity. "You

Says so in the scriptures

Fate is inexorable. It grips us like a harness.

Uhtred of Steapa - He might be dumb as a parsnip but he knows how to fight.