Bernard Cornwell Quotes (175 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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The Pale Horseman

Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell: 175 quotes 1 like

Famous Bernard Cornwell Quotes

“Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Bernard Cornwell

“He tolerated his fellow Englishmen, but the Welsh were cabbage-farting dwarves, the Scots were scabby arse-suckers, and the French were shriveled turds.”

Bernard Cornwell

“Wyrd bið ful āræd. Fate is inexorable.”

Bernard Cornwell book Warriors of the Storm

Variant: Fate is inexorable.
Source: Warriors of the Storm

“But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Winter King

Source: The Winter King

“Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.”

Bernard Cornwell book Death of Kings

Source: Death of Kings

“Life is simple," I said. "Ale, women, sword, and reputation. Nothing else matters.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Pale Horseman

Source: The Pale Horseman

Bernard Cornwell Quotes about men

“A leader leads,” Ragnar said, “and you can’t ask men to risk death if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

“The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation… Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

“Some French ran for help to the British infantry. The red ranks opened up, helped them in, because all infantry feared that moment when the cavalry hit them at full charge. The British soldiers shouted at the French, told them to run to the British lines, and the red-coated men watched in awe what the Heavy Dragoons were doing and knew Fate could have decreed it otherwise and so they helped their enemy to escape the common enemy of all infantry.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, describing the effect of a successful British cavalry charge, p. 249
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“He wondered again, for the hundredth hundredth time, why these men, reckoned by their country to be the dregs of society, fought so well, so willingly, so bravely.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Leroy, p. 265
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Honor (1985)

“The Hanoverian knew the cavalry was no danger. It was the infantry, the unstoppable red-jacketed infantry, that was going to beat him […] He stared at the 78th and he reckoned that no force on earth could stop such men. "The best damn infantry on earth. Watch them! You'll not see better fighting men while you live!"”

Bernard Cornwell

Sergeant Anthony Pohlmann, p. 271
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Triumph (1997)

“Sharpe had seen columns before, and was puzzled by them. […] These columns had around forty men in a rank and twenty in each file. The French used such a formation, a great battering block of men, because it was simpler to persuade conscripts to advance in such an array and because, against badly trained troops, the very sight of such a great mass of men was daunting. But against redcoats? It was suicide.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 226
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Havoc (2003)

Bernard Cornwell Quotes about combat

“"You are like the Spanish, Captain Sharpe, confused. Cadiz is filled with politicians and lawyers and the encourage confusion. They argue. Should we be a Republic? Or perhaps a monarchy? Do we want a Cortes? And if so, should it have one chamber or two? Some want a parliament like Britain's. Others insist that Spain is best ruled by God and by a king. They squabble about these like children, but in truth there is only one real argument." "The argument, is whether Spain fights France or not?" "Exactly." "And you, believe Spain should fight against France?" "You know what the French have done to our country? The women raped, the children killed, the churches desecrated? Yes, I believe we should fight."”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Fernando Galiana and Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 202
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)

“"Would you give my warmest regards to Sir Arthur Wellesley? Or Lord Wellington as we must now call him." "You know him, sir?" "Of course. We were at the Royal Academy of Equiation together, at Angers. It's strange, Major, how your greatest soldier was taught to fight in France."”

Bernard Cornwell

Colonel Michel Dubreton (French Army) and Major Richard Sharpe, p. 80
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

“Sharpe led the way towards the right hand door, all waiting done, all nervousness dispelled because the fight was on and there was nothing now but to win. This was the Sharpe who had saved Wellington's life at Assaye, who had hacked through the ranks to take an Eagle with Harper, who had gone, maddened, into the breach at Badajoz. This was the Sharpe whom Major General Nairn had only been able to guess at as he looked at the quiet, dark-haired man across the rug in Frenada.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 118
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

“And don't tell me this isn't your war. You swore an oath to serve the King of Spain, and the king of Spain is a prisoner in France and you were supposed to be his guard. By God, this is your war far more than it's my war. I never swore an oath to protect Spain, I never had a woman raped by a Frenchman or a child murdered by a dragoon or a harvest stolen and a house burned by a Crapaud forage party. Your country has suffered all those things, and your country is Spain, and if you'd rather fight for Ireland than for Spain, then why in the name of Almighty God did you take the Spanish oath?”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 110
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

“He was confused. He was in love with a woman he did not know, except he knew her loyalty was to the enemy. Yet Denmark did not feel like an enemy, though it was. And he was a Soldier still, and Soldiers, he reckoned, fought for those who could not fight for themselves, and that meant he should be fighting for Astrid's folk and not his own. But that was too great a wrench to contemplate.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 136
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Prey (2001)

“The Marques' thought he had the Rifleman beaten, but all he had done was to make the Rifleman fight. This no longer looked like a duel to d'Alembord; it looked like a brawl leading to slaughter.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Peter d'Alembord, p. 65
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Honor (1985)

Bernard Cornwell: Trending quotes

“Defeat the enemy's infantry and the cavalry and gunners had nowhere to hide.”

Bernard Cornwell

Sergeant Richard Sharpe, p. 233
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Triumph (1997)
Context: "Now we'll see how their infantry fight," Wellesley said savagely to Campbell, and Sharpe understood that this was the real testing point, for infantry was everything. The infantry was despised for it did not have the cavalry's glamour, nor the killing capacity of the gunners, but it was still the infantry that won battles. Defeat the enemy's infantry and the cavalry and gunners had nowhere to hide.

“The redcoats were doing what they did best, what they were paid a shilling a day less stoppages to do: they were killing.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 317
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)
Context: They were the despised of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They were drunks and thieves, the scourings of gutters and jails. They wore the red coat because no one else wanted them, or because they were so desperate that they had no choice. They were the scum of Britain, but they could fight. They had always fought, but in the army, they were told how to fight with discipline. They discovered sergeants and officers who valued them. They punished them too, of course, and swore at them, and cursed them, and whipped their backs bloody, and cursed them again, but valued them. They even loved them, and officers worth five thousand pounds a year were fighting alongside them now. The redcoats were doing what they did best, what they were paid a shilling a day less stoppages to do: they were killing.

“They had pride. And they had the precious ability to fire platoon volleys.”

Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)
Context: They were thieves and murderers and fools and rapists and drunkards. Not one had joined for love of country, and certainly not for love of their King [... ] They were paid pitifully, fined for every item they lost, and the few pennies they managed to keep they usually gambled away. They were feckless rogues, as violent as hounds and as coarse as swine, but they had two things. They had pride. And they had the precious ability to fire platoon volleys. They could fire those half company volleys faster than any other army in the world. Stand in front of these recoats and the balls came thick as hail. It was death to be in their way and seven French battlions were now in death's forecourt and the South Essex was tearing them to ribbons.

Narrator, p. 101

Bernard Cornwell Quotes

“It was death to be in their way and seven French battlions were now in death's forecourt”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 101
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)
Context: They were thieves and murderers and fools and rapists and drunkards. Not one had joined for love of country, and certainly not for love of their King [... ] They were paid pitifully, fined for every item they lost, and the few pennies they managed to keep they usually gambled away. They were feckless rogues, as violent as hounds and as coarse as swine, but they had two things. They had pride. And they had the precious ability to fire platoon volleys. They could fire those half company volleys faster than any other army in the world. Stand in front of these recoats and the balls came thick as hail. It was death to be in their way and seven French battlions were now in death's forecourt and the South Essex was tearing them to ribbons.

Death , Way

“How can you expect obedience from the men when officers are corrupt?”

Bernard Cornwell

General Arthur Wellesley, p. 175
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Prey (2001)
Context: My God, I will not abide plundering, especially by officers. How can you expect obedience from the men when officers are corrupt?

Men

“And he was amazed, as he always was, by the courage of the French. They were being struck hard, yet they stayed.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 300
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)
Context: The real noise was of musketry, the pounding cough of volley fire, the relentless noise, and if he listened hard he could hear the balls striking on muskets and pounding into flesh. He could also hear the cries of the wounded and the screams of officers' horses put down by the balls. And he was amazed, as he always was, by the courage of the French. They were being struck hard, yet they stayed. They stayed behind a straggling heap of dead men, they edged aside to let the wounded crawl behind, they reloaded and fired, and all the time the volleys kept coming.

Courage

“Once a thief, always a thief, only now I steal from the enemy.”

Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)
Context: Until two days ago,' she went on suddenly, 'I thought that my life depended on other people. On employers. Now I think it depends on me. You taught me that. But I still need money.'
'Money's easy,' said Sharpe dismissively.
'That is not the conventional wisdom,' Sarah said drily.
'Steal the stuff,' Sharpe said.
'You were really a thief?'
'Still am. Once a thief, always a thief, only now I steal from the enemy. And some day I'll have enough to stop me from doing it and then I'll have to stop others from thieving from me.'
'You have a simple view of life.'
'You're born, you survive, you die,' Sharpe said. 'What's hard about that?

“A soldier's job was to kill. A rifle killed.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Richard Sharpe, p. 55
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)
Context: He was a Major now, the ranks long in his past, yet he still carried the rifle. He had always carried a long-arm into battle; a musket when he was a private, a rifle now he was an officer. He saw no reason not to carry a gun. A soldier's job was to kill. A rifle killed.

“All feared the artillery, coughing its death in fan-like swathes.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 63
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)
Context: Some feared the cavalry and in their minds they rehearsed the thunder of a thousand hooves, the dust rolling like a sea fog from the charge and shot through with the bright blades that could slice a man's life away or, worse, hook out his eyes and leave him in darkness for life. Others feared musket fire, the lottery of an unaimed bullet coming in the relentless volleys that would fire the dry grass with burning wads and roast the wounded where they fell. All feared the artillery, coughing its death in fan-like swathes. It was best not to think about that.

Death , Fear

“To say anything was useless, to say nothing was cowardly.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Richard Sharpe, in response to the suggestion of whipping sixty men, p. 151
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Eagle (1981)
Context: To say anything was useless, to say nothing was cowardly. "I think it a bad idea, Sir."

“We celebrate kings, we honor great men, we admire aristocrats, we applaud actors, we shower gold on portrait painters and we even, sometimes, reward soldiers, but we always despise merchants.”

Bernard Cornwell

Colonel Hector McCandless, and Private Richard Sharpe, p. 300
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)
Context: "That's what it's about, Sharpe, trade. That's why you're fighting here, trade." "It seems a funny thing to be fighting about, sir." "Does it? Not to me, Sharpe. Without trade there's no wealth, and without wealth there's no society worth having. Without trade, Private Sharpe, we'd be nothing but beasts in the mud. Trade is indeed worth fighting for, though the good Lord knows we don't appreciate trade much. We celebrate kings, we honor great men, we admire aristocrats, we applaud actors, we shower gold on portrait painters and we even, sometimes, reward soldiers, but we always despise merchants. But why? It is the merchant's wealth that drives the mills, Sharpe; it moves the looms, it it keeps the hammers falling, it fills the fleets, it makes the roads, it forges the iron, it grows the wheat, it bakes the bread, and it builds the churches and the cottages and the palaces. Without God and trade we would be nothing."

Men

“Destiny is all, Ravn liked to tell me, destiny is everything. He would even say it in English, “Wyrd biõ ful ãræd.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

“We all suffer from dreams.”

Bernard Cornwell book Death of Kings

Source: Death of Kings

Dreams , Suffering

“The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Winter King

Source: The Winter King

Love , Friendship , Singing

“An archer does not aim, he kills.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Thomas of Hookton, p. 18
The Grail Quest, The Archer's Tale/Harlequin (2000)

“It seemed that if someone was lost in Copenhagen then the citizens regarded it as their duty to offer help.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 78
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Prey (2001)

Help

“Some deaths a man can enjoy, the death of an enemy, and Sharpe was paid to have enemies. Yet he did not wish death on the French. There was more satisfaction in seeing a surrendered enemy, a defeated enemy, than in seeing a slaughtered enemy.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 304
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Death

“He's actually a rather good ruler. Better, I suspect, than most of our Christian monarchs. He's certainly been good for Mysore. He's fetched it a deal of wealth, given it more justice than most countries enjoy in India and he's been tolerant to most religions, though I fear he did persecute some unfortunate Christians.”

Bernard Cornwell

Colonel Hector McCandless, on the Tippo Sultan, p. 300
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Fear , Religion , Justice , Country

“Form them up Sergeant!" "Aye aye, sir." "You're not a bloody sailor, Sergeant. A plain yes will do.”

Bernard Cornwell

<br/k> Aye aye, sir."
British Officer and Sergeant, p. 111
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Prey (2001)

“He had no picture of her. She would be a memory that would fade as her warmth would fade, but would fade over the years, and he would forget the passion that gave life to this face.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Richard Sharpe (describing his murdered wife, Teresa Moreno) p. 339
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

Life , Memory , Passion , Forgetting

“"You've never heard of Paul Revere?" "No." "Lucky man, Sharpe. He called my father a traitor, and our family called Revere a traitor, and I rather think we lost the argument."”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Thomas Leroy, and Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 81
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)

Family , Thinking

“Good plain soldiering wins wars. Doing mundane things well is what counts.”

Bernard Cornwell

Colonel Sir Barnaby Moon, p. 11
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)

War

“A charge of knights was supposed to be thundering death on hooves, a flail of metal driven by the ponderous weight of men, horses and armor, and properly done, it was a mass maker of widows.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Narrator, p. 338
The Grail Quest, The Archer's Tale/Harlequin (2000)

Death , Men , Horse

“In the short time I've known you, Richard, I've noticed you possess a lamentable tendency to put on shining armor and look for ladies to rescue. King Arthur, God rest his soul, would have loved you. He'd have had you fighting every evil knight in the forest.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Michael Hogan, p. 254
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Havoc (2003)

Love , God , Soul , Evil

“"We asked for them in February. It's June now; they must be coming." "They've been saying that about Christ for eighteen hundred years."”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Richard Sharpe and Major General Nairn
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Regiment (1986)

Christ

“"I'm a Soldier, not a bloody clerk! I fetch bloody forage, count bloody shovels, and take punishment drills. It's yes, sir, no, sir, can I dig your latrine, sir, and it's not bloody soldiering!" "It is bloody soldiering! What the hell else do you think soldiering is? Do you think you can win a war without forage? Or without shovels? Or, God help us, without latrines? That is soldiering! Just because you've been allowed to swan about like a bloody pirate for years doesn't mean you shouldn't take your turn at real work."”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and Major Michael Hogan, p. 114
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)

God , War , Hell , Thinking

“Let me tell you about the English War Bow, Joscelyn. It is a simple thing, med of yew, a peasant's tool, really. My huntsman can use one, but he is the only man in Berat who has ever mastered the weapon. Why do you think that is? I'll tell you anyway. It takes years, Joscelyn, many years to master the yew bow. Ten years? Probably that long, and after ten years a man can send an arrow clean through armor at two hundred paces. Splat! A thousand ecus of man, armor, and weaponry fallen to a peasant's bow. And it isn't luck, Joscelyn. My huntsman can put an arrow through a bracelet at a hundred paces. He can pierce mail coat at two hundred. I've seen him put an arrow through an oak door at a hundred and fifty, and the door was three inches thick!”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

The Count of Berat, p. 111
The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

War , Thinking

“He had an inspiration and went to the Quinta's kitchen and stole two large tins of tea. He reckoned it was time Kate did something for her country and there were few finer gestures than donating good China tea to riflemen.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 136
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Havoc (2003)

Time , Tea , Country

“I doubt I called him illegitimate, sir. I wouldn't use that sort of word. I probably called him a bastard.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 136
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

“They were German hussars and they streamed out of the dunes leaving a trail of dust, their drawn blades glittering.”

Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Prey (2001)

“Arthur Wellesley had waited six years for this moment. He was twenty-nine years old and had begun to fear that he would never see battle, but now, at last, he would discover whether he and his regiment could fight, and so he filled his lungs to give the order that would start the slaughter.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 28
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Fear , Waiting , Fight

“Sharpe's sword was lucky. There was a soldier's goddess and her name was Fate and she had liked the sword Harper made for Sharpe. The Kligenthal was stained with the blood of friends, with the torture of flayed priests, and the beautiful sword contained not luck, but evil.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 312
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Fate , Beauty , Evil

“Sir Thomas was a sentimental man. He loved Soldiers. He had once thought all men who wore the red coat were rogues and thieves, the scourings of the gutters, and since he had joined the army he had discovered he was right, but he had also learned to love them. He loved their patience, their ferocity, their endurance, and their bravery.”

Bernard Cornwell

General Thomas Graham, p. 234
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)

Love , Men , Learning , Patience

“We take what we want … we don't pay our enemies for food.”

Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

Food

“Our duty, Richard, is to be decorative and stay alive long enough to be promoted. But no one expects us to be useful! Good God! A junior officer being useful? That'll be the day.”

Bernard Cornwell

Ensign Roderick Venables, p. 20
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fortress (1999)

God

“Look after him, Lieutenant. An army isn't made of it's officers, you know, though we officers like to think it is. An army is no better than its men, and when you find good men, you must look after them. That's an officer's job.”

Bernard Cornwell

Colonel Jean Gudin, p. 353
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Men , Thinking

“Your friend Will is a good man, too, but I fear he's no longer an archer." "It would have been better, I sometimes think-" "If he had died? Wish death on no man, Thomas, it comes soon enough without a wish."”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Mordecai and Thomas of Hookton, p. 352
The Grail Quest, Vagabond (2002)

Death , Fear , Thinking

“It is not wise, I think, to mix private revenge with war." "Of course it's not wise, but it's bloody enjoyable. Enjoying yourself, Sergeant?”

Bernard Cornwell

<br/k> "Never been happier, sir."
Lieutenant Jorge Vicente, Captain Richard Sharpe, and Sergeant Patrick Harper, p. 161
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

War , Revenge , Thinking

“He was not certain why he was sure of defeat. It was, perhaps, that he admired Wellington. The English General had a mind of fine calculation that appealed to Ducos, who did not believe that the vainglorious Marshals of France had the measure of the Englishman. The Emperor, now, he was different. He would out-calculate and outfight any man.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Pierre Ducos, p. 233
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Honor (1985)