Bernard Cornwell: Trending quotes

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Bernard Cornwell: 350 quotes1 like

“I do not approve of you, Thomas, and I do not approve of your woman, but nor can I approve of a Church that uses pain to bring the love of God to a sinful world. Evil begets evil, it spreads like a weed, but good works are tender shoots that need husbandry.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Abbott Planchard, p. 212
The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

“I think the Holy Grail is a dream that men have, a dream that the world can be made perfect. And if it existed, then we'd all know the dream can't come true.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Thomas of Hookton, p. 192
The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

“He was a soldier and he marched where he was ordered to march and he killed the king's enemies when he arrived. That was his job and the army was his home and he loved both even though he knew he would have to fight like a gutter-born bastard for every step of advancement that other men took for granted. And he knew too that he would never be prized for his birth or his wit or his wealth, but would only be reckoned as good as his last fight, but that thought made him smile. For Sharpe's last battle had been against the best soldier France had and Sharpe had drowned the bastard like a rat. Sharpe had won, Loup was dead, and it was over at last: Sharpe's battle.”

Bernard Cornwell

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 354
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

“"It is you, sir?" "Sergeant Barret, isn't it?" "Yes, sir." "It is me" They bloody hung you, sir." "This army can't do anything right, Sergeant."”

Bernard Cornwell

Sergeant Barret and Major Richard Sharpe, p. 273
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Honor (1985)

“The Grail is like God. It is everywhere, all around us, obvious, but we refuse to see it. Men think they can only see God when they build a great church and fill it with gold and silver statues, but all they need do is look. The Grail exists, Thomas, you just need to open your eyes.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Genevieve, p. 103
The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

“Here, in this filthy stench of powder smoke, he felt at home. Other men learned how to plough fields or to shape wood, but Sharpe had learned how to use a musket or rifle, sword or bayonet, and how to turn an enemy's flank or assault a fortress.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 69
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

“It ain't justice, Richard, but politics, and like all politics it ain't pretty, but well done it can work wonders.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Michael Hogan, p. 172
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

“Take a man who has failed at everything, give him a final chance, show him trust, lead him to one success, and there is a sudden confidence that will lead to the next success. Soon they will believe they are unbeatable, and become unbeatable, but the trick was to have officers like Sharpe who kept on offering trust. Of course the Light Company missed him! He had expected great things of them and trusted them to win.”

Bernard Cornwell

Sergeant Patrick Harper, p. 122
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)

“If he had learned one thing as a Soldier it was that any decision, even a bad one, was better than none.”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 130
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

“I've killed priests before, and another priest sold me an indulgence for the killings, so don't think I fear you or your Church. There's no sin that can't be bought off, no pardon that can't be purchased.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Sir William Douglas, to Bernard de Taillebourg of the Inquisition, p. 17
The Grail Quest, Vagabond (2002)

“We'll need all the officers we can get then, and then you'll get your chance. You might be a quartermaster now, but ten years from now you'll be leading a battalion, so just be patient.”

Bernard Cornwell

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

“This was the might of France, the pride of France, the tactic of the world's first conscript army, and this column, Clausel's counter-attack, ignored cold mathematical logic. It was not defeated by the line.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 253
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“… a newly raised unit of young men fresh from the depots of France, and they were half-trained, ill disciplined, resentful of an Emperor who had marched them off to a war they mostly did not understand and, above all, hungry.”

Bernard Cornwell

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

“You may call me doctor. You won't, of course. You'll call me damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of Christian children. How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn lifes lessons.”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Doctor Mordecai
The Grail Quest, The Archer's Tale/Harlequin (2000)

“When God made the world he made the big plain just for the cavalry. It was firm, or would be when the sun had dried off the night's rain, and it was mostly level. The sabres could fall like scythes in the corn. The Arapiles, Greater and Lesser, God made for the gunners. From their summits, conveniently made flat so that the artillery could have a stable platform, the guns could dominate the plain. God had made nothing for the infantry, except a soil easily dug into graves, but the infantry were used to that.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, p. 234
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“You know what the trick of a long life is, Sharpe? Stay out of range.”

Bernard Cornwell

Doctor Pickering, p. 133
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Trafalgar (2000)

“There are rules, orders, regulations, Sharpe, by which our lives are conducted. If we ignore those rules, burdensome though they may be, then we open the gates to anarchy and tyranny; the very things against which we fight!”

Bernard Cornwell

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Windham, p. 104
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)

“They were outnumbered, they were surrounded, yet no one had panicked, not one battalion had been caught deployed in column, and not one square had been rattled by the horse-men's proximity. The Light had saved the Seventh Division, and now it was saving itself with a dazzling display of professional soldiering. Pure drill was defeating French verve, and Massena's attack, which had swept around the British right flank with overwhelming force, had been rendered utterly impotent.”

Bernard Cornwell

Narrator, describing the actions of the British Light Division during the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, p. 319
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

“There are men in Spain who need me, who trust me. They're not special men, they wouldn't look very well in Carlton House, but they are fighting for all of you. That's why I'm here.”

Bernard Cornwell

Major Richard Sharpe, p. 53
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Regiment (1986)

“"Nondum amabam, et amare amabam. I did not love, but yearned to love." "A very elaborate way of saying you're lonely."”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

Thomas of Hookton and Eleanor, p. 235
The Grail Quest, The Archer's Tale/Harlequin (2000)