Bernard Cornwell: Trending quotes

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Bernard Cornwell: 350 quotes1 like

“Whenever human beings don't know what to do, they call in the soldiers. Force ends everything, yes? That's what they did with Christ, Mr. Sharpe, they called in the soldiers. They didn't know what to do with him so they called on men like you and I don't suppose they thought twice about what they were doing, they just banged in the nails. You'd have done that, wouldn't you?”

Bernard Cornwell

Reverend Doctor Patrick Curtis, p. 223
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“I remember one other battle, gentlemen, which almost matched our recent victory in carnage. After Assaye I had to thank a young Sergeant; today we salute the same man, a Captain. Gentlemen, I give you Sharpe's Eagle.”

Bernard Cornwell

General Arthur Wellesley, p. 267
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Eagle (1981)

“‘ There are three kinds of soldier, Sharpe […] There are the damned useless ones, and God knows there's an endless supply of those. Then there are the good solid lads who get the job done, but would piss in their breeches if you didn't show them how their buttons worked. And then there's your and me. Soldiers' soldiers, that's who we are.’”

Bernard Cornwell

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

“If you capture a ship, Sharpe, you keep the old name unless it's really obnoxious. Nelson took the Franklin at the Nile, an eighty gun thing of great beauty, but the navy will be damned if it has a ship named after a traitorous bloody Yankee so we call her the Canopus now.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Joel Chase, p. 15
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Trafalgar (2000)

“Poor bloody Dale, Sharpe thought, to be betrayed in his first battle. If he survived he would be invalided out of the army. His broken body, good for nothing, would be sent to Lisbon and there he would have to rot on the quays until the bureaucrats made sure he had accounted for all his equipment. Anything missing would be charged to the balance of his miserable wages and only when the account was balanced would he be put onto a foul transport and shipped to an English quayside. There he was left, the army's obligation discharged, though if he was lucky he might be given a travel document that promised to reimburse any parish overseer who fed him while he traveled to his home. Usually the overseers ignored the paper and kicked the invalid out of their jurisdiction with an order to go and beg somewhere else. Dale might be better off dead than face all that.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Richard Sharpe, commenting on the fate of a wounded Soldier, p. 105
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“He could chafe against the rich and privileged but he acknowledged that the army had taken him from the gutter and put an officer's sash round his waiste and Sharpe could think of no other job that would offer a low-born bastard on the run from the law the chance of rank and responsibility.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 13
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Eagle (1981)

“The more I see of families … the happier I am to be an orphan.”

Bernard Cornwell

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

“Sharpe could feel the excitement of the Company, their confidence, and he marvelled at it. They were enjoying it, taking on sixteen times their number, and he did not understand that it was because of him. Harper knew, Knowles knew, that the tall Rifle Captain who was not given to rousing speeches could nevertheless make men feel that the impossible was just a little troublesome and that victory was a commonplace where he led.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 68
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Gold (1981)

“This evening, he planned to make Sharpe drunk. He planned to force the grief out into the open and he would do it as the Irish knew how to do it, with a wake. […] A wake, a decent, drunken, laughing wake. Hogan had ordered Harry Price to attend and he would force Sharpe to drink, to talk, to remember Teresa, and in the morning the grief would already be turning into healthy regret.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Michael Hogan, p. 344
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

“"She's like a woman, sir, take care of her and she'll take care of you." "You'll notice he let Mister Sharpe do the ramming, sir."”

Bernard Cornwell

Rifleman Hagman and Sergeant Patrick Harper, p. 188
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Havoc (2003)

“Remember, Mr Sharpe, an officer's eyes are more valuable than his sword!”

Bernard Cornwell

General Arthur Wellesley, p. 61
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Eagle (1981)

“He asked three things of his men. That they fought, as he did, with a ruthless professionalism. That they stole only from the enemy and the dead unless they were starving. And that they never got drunk without his permission.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 15
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Eagle (1981)

“"The rules of chivalry, my lord, ensure my protection." "Chivalry? Chivalry? I have heard it mentioned in songs, madame, but this is war. Our task is to punish the followers of Charles of Blois for rebelling against their lawful lord. Punishment and chivalry do not mix."”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Jeanette, the Countess of Armorica and Sir Simon Jekyll, p. 64
The Grail Quest, The Archer's Tale/Harlequin (2000)

“She had been restless and forceful, a killer of the border hills, yet she had a childlike faith in love. She had given herself to him and never doubted the wisdom of the gift as he had sometimes doubted it. She had kept the faith, and she was dead.”

Bernard Cornwell

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

“The Rifles were a new kind of regiment, prizing skill and intelligence above blind discipline.”

Bernard Cornwell

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

“"They're not going, sir. Not going South." "And who made that decision, Sergeant?" "We all did, sir." "Since when, Sergeant, has this army been a… a democracy?" "A what, sir?" "Since when did Sergeants outrank Lieutenants?"”

Bernard Cornwell

Sergeant Williams and Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 40
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

“A Frenchman cried and Connelly squatted beside him, took the man's hand, and talked of Ireland. He told the uncomprehending Frenchman of Connaught's beauty, of its women, of fields so fat that a lamb was full grown in a week, of rivers so thick that the fish begged to be caught, and the Frenchman quieted and Connelly patted his hair and told him he was brave, and he was proud of him, and beyond the small grating the sky darkened into dusk and the orderlies came down again and dragged the Frenchman, who had died, head-bumping up the steps.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 184
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“Sharpe had been turbulent, ambitious, but one day, Hogan supposed, that restlessness would have found satisfaction. Then, curiously, Hogan found himself resenting Sharpe, resenting him because he had been killed and was thus denying his friendship to those who still lived.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Michael Hogan, commenting on Sharpe's apparent death, p. 179
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“"Our guide, a fisherman. A good fellow." "He doesn't hate us?" "Hate us?" "I keep being told how the Spanish hate us, sir." "He hates the French, like I do, Sharpe. If there is one constancy in this vale of tears, it is always hate the damned French, always."”

Bernard Cornwell

General Thomas Graham and Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 126
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)

“Forrest saw the war as a moral crusade, a fight for decency and order, and victory to the British would mean that the Almighty, who could not possibly be suspected of Republican sentiments, had blessed the British effort.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Joseph Forrest, p. 162
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)