“Sharpe knew himself to be a tough man, but he had always thought of himself as a reasonable one, yet now, in the mirror of William's nervousness, he saw himself as something far worse; a bullying man who would use the small authority of his rank to frighten men. In fact, the very kind of officer Sharpe had most hated when he himself was under their embittered authority.”

“Sharpe wanted to be liked by the men under his command. He was tempted to believe that if he was friendly and approachable, reasonable and kind, then his men would follow him more willingly. But kindness was not the wellspring of loyalty and he knew the temptation had to be resisted.”

“A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failures certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.”

“When Cesar Chavez died in his sleep in 1993, not yet a very old man at sixty-six, he died—as he had so often portrayed himself in life—as a loser.”

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.”

“Patrick Harper was an Ulsterman from Donegal and had been driven into the ranks of Britain's army by hunger and poverty. He was a huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe who was himself six feet tall. In battle Harper was an awesome figure, yet in truth he was a kind, humorous and easygoing man whose benevolence disguised his life's central contradiction, which was that he had no love for the king for whom he fought and for the country whose flag he defended, yet there were few better soldiers in all King George's army, and none who was more loyal to his friends.”

“125. A monk is a man who considers himself one with all men because he seems constantly to see himself in every man.”

“There is perhaps no truer sign that a man is really advancing than that he is learning to forget himself, that he is losing the natural thoughts about self in the thought of One higher than himself, to whose guidance he can commit himself and all men.”

“What had happened? As he asked himself the question, he knew the answer. That no one had thought fit to tell him! No one! It was a bitter pill for him to swallow. He had been forgotten. Yet he had always wished to be forgotten. He could not have it both ways.”

“He had reached that moment in life, different for each one of us, when a man abandonds himself to his demon or to his genius, following a mysterious law which bids him either to destroy or outdo himself.”