Quotes from Bernard Cornwell

our lives are like a voyage across an unknown sea and sometimes we get tired of calm waters and gentle winds, and we have no choice but to slam the steering oar's loom hard over and head for the grey clouds and the whitecaps and the tumult of danger.

I touched Thor's hammer, then Serpent-Breath's hilt, for death was stalking us. God help me, I thought, touching the hammer again, Thor help us all, for I did not think we could win.

a mystery to make men mad.

And we screamed. We screamed our war cry, our shout of slaughter, our joy of being men in battle who are driven by terror.

we cannot decree what we would wish. Making an oath is like steering a course, but if the winds and tides of fate are too strong, then the steering oar losses its power.

Who is she?" Æthelflaed asked, her voice scarce above a whisper. "Her name," I said, "is Brida." And the gelded priest turned an agonized face toward me and called for help. "Father!" He was my son.

If he was still alive, I thought. I knelt to him, then to Osferth, and I left. We walked in silence to a cloistered courtyard where the last roses of summer had dropped their petals on the damp grass. We sat on a stone bench and listened to the mournful chants echoing from the passageway. "The archbishop wanted me dead," I said. "I

He doesn't want to face Englishmen,' the Lord of Douglas said, and he knew he was right. Ever since the Scottish knights

all the Danish leaders, had carved into our shield wall with his great war ax, I had faced him, beaten him, and sent him to join the einherjar, that army of the dead who feast and swive in Odin's corpse hall. What

to." "And only have one wife?" "Only one wife. They're strict about that." He thought about it. "I still think I should do it," he said, "because Eadred's god does have power. Look at that dead man! It's a miracle that he hasn't rotted away!" The Danes were fascinated by Eadred's relics. Most did not understand why a group of monks would carry a corpse

She was a widow now, but she still ruled Ragnar's great fortress of Dunholm, which, after Bebbanburg, was the most formidable stronghold in Northumbria.

The men with leather or mail mostly possessed helmets and had proper weapons, swords or spears, while the rest were armed with axes, adzes, sickles, or sharpened hoes. Eadred grandly called it the Army of the Holy Man, but if I had been the holy man I would have bolted back to heaven and waited for something better to come along.

He thinks with his heart, Uhtred,' Alfred said, 'not his head. You can change a man's heart, but not his head.

I do understand that you can look into someone's eyes,' I heard myself saying, 'and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. Know that their voice can make your heart miss a beat and that their company is all your happiness can ever desire and that their absence will leave your soul alone, bereft and lost.

Taxes, as I was to learn, were the best source of wealth for men who did not want to work

intelligence is a weapon that has a sharp edge and a long reach

She looked at Stiorra and grinned, and I wondered whether that was what the two girls had in common: bad fathers.

Los dioses no velan por nosotros, no más desde luego de lo que los niños cuidan de sus juguetes. Si estamos aquí, es sólo para procurarles buenos ratos; a veces, hasta se complacen en jugarnos jugarretas.

Serpent-Breath was famous...Wasp-Sting, short and lethal.

You'd do better to repair the fort walls,' I said. 'You think the Danes will come again, lord?' he asked nervously. 'The Danes always come again.

What happens to you, Uhtred, is what you make happen.

Who summons the dead man?" she asked. "A fresh corpse," Æthelwold said. "A fresh corpse?" I asked. "Someone must be sent to the world of the dead," he explained, as though it were obvious, "to find Bjorn and bring him back." "So they kill someone?" Gisela asked. "How else can they send a messenger to the dead?" Æthelwold asked pugnaciously.

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.

Mas o destino, como Merlin sempre nos ensinava, é inexorável. A vida é uma brincadeira dos Deuses, costumava dizer Merlin, e não existe justiça. Você precisa aprender a rir, disse-me ele uma vez, ou então vai simplesmente chorar até morrer.