Quotes from Bernard Cornwell

Do you ever read the scriptures? Every day, I said enthusiastically, not a moment passes that I don't have a quick read of Ieremias or dip into Ezekiel. She smiled, amused. What a barbarian you are!

Wyrd bið ful aræd.

Fiat voluntas tua

Ragnall Ivarson. I had never met him, but I knew him. I knew his reputation. No man sailed a ship better, no man fought more fiercely, no man was held in more fear. He was a savage, a pirate, a wild king of nowhere.

When a man cannot fight he should curse. The gods like to feel needed.

There is such joy in a good ship, and a greater joy to have the ship's belly fat with other men's silver. It is the Viking joy, driving a dragon-headed hull through a wind-driven sea towards a future full of feasts and laughter. The Danes taught me that and I love them for it.

if a man believes the nonsense that there is only one god then there's no point in arguing because it would be like discussing a rainbow with a blind man.

When a man must choose between nothing and everything he has small choice.

How can a god disapprove of a good hump?

There is such joy in chaos. 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.

But Ubba? Only the gods tell him what to do, and you should beware of men who take their orders from the gods.

So what do we do?" Finan asked. "We ride down there," I said, easing my way back from the crest, "we smile politely, and tell the stupid bastard that he's our prisoner.

I look at those parchments, which are deeds saying that Uhtred, son of Uhtred, is the lawful and sole owner of the lands that are carefully marked by stones and by dykes, by oaks and by ash, by marsh and by sea, and I dream of those lands, wavebeaten and wild beneath the winddriven sky. I dream, and know that one day I will take back the land from those who stole it from me.

Christianity is not a religion that offers the solace of revenge to its adherents. For that you must go to the old women who know which herbs to pluck and what charms to say under a waning moon.

Um país é a sua história, bispo; a soma de todas as suas histórias. Somos o que nossos pais fizeram de nós, suas vitórias nos deram o que temos .

There is a greater war, Uhtred. Not the fight between Saxon and Dane, but between God and the devil, between good and evil! We are part of it!

That is why battles of the shield wall are slow to start. Men have to nerve themselves for the horror.

So now I shall write the tale's ending with my sword beside me and I shall hope that I am given time to finish this tale of Arthur, my Lord, who was betrayed, reviled and, after his departure, missed like no other man was ever missed in all of Britain's history.

Many men do not beat their wives, even though the law allows it and the church encourages it, but a man gains no reputation by beating a weaker person. Æthelred had beaten Æthelflaed, but he was a weak man, and it takes a weak man to prove his strength by striking a woman.

There's something I've noticed, sir,' he said, 'ever since we joined up with you in Spain.' 'What's that?' 'That we're always outnumbered and surrounded.' Sharpe had been listening, not to Harper, but to the day itself. 'Notice anything?' he asked. 'That we're surrounded and outnumbered, sir?

Men fear wanderers for they have no rules. The Danes came as strangers, rootless and violent, and that, I thought, was why I was always happier in their company.

Violence may not be good, my friend, but it has a certain efficiency in the resolution of otherwise insoluble problems.

You bastard!' he shouted. He was quick. No warrior stays alive by being slow.

Yes, sir, Hicks said. He was a small young man, very officious, who would never contradict a superior. If Morris claimed the clouds were made of cheese Hicks would just stand to attention, twitch his nose, and swear blind he could smell Cheddar.