“Strangely, he wasn’t scared at all. He was even more coldly calm, calmly analytical. And he knew that he would have to be if he was to stand a chance to win this war. If he was to win it, his mind would have to be his major weapon; firearms might win a battle, but never the war.”

“A field commander never has the information he needs. He has to go with his best hunch. The more information he has, the easier it is for him to win the battle.”

“Kev wasn't certain if he was surrendering to Win or to his own passion for her. Only that there was no more holding back. He would take her. And he would give her everything he had, every part of his soul, even the broken pieces.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn't to know,
Like a chicken with a fox,
He couldn't win the war with ego.
Give the kid the pick of pips,
And give him all your stripes and ribbons.
Now he's sitting in his hole,
He might as well have buttons and bows.”

“I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany. We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the Euro. That's quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three…. If a Chancellor is trying to push something through, he must be a man of power. And if he's smart, he knows when the time is ripe. In one case – the Euro – I was like a dictator … The Euro is a synonym for Europe. Europe, for the first time, has no more war.”

“He carried no dagger in his mouth, as many reformers have done. He cared for no cause that reason could not win. There never was a more cautious innovator, a more practical dreamer, or a more reasoning revolutionist. Whatever he commended he supported with his purse. It was this that won for him confidence and trust, given to no compeer of his time.”

“How can you win a battle, if you don't arm yourself? Only a fool enters into a battle he cannot win.”

“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.”

“He who conquers his enemy with meekness, wins fame.”

“General Sherman, who had lived in the South, liked Southerners and did not at all sympathize with Northern racial views, yet became the most hated and feared destroyer of the South and its whole civilization. And I think he did so because he saw that as necessary to win the war. And I think Lincoln made some of his decisions—issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, for example, or turning Sherman loose — because he saw that as necessary to win the war.”