Bernard Cornwell quotes - page 3
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
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
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
Unfairness existed, it always had and it always would, and the miracle, to Sharpe's eyes, was that some men like Hill and Wellesley, though they had become wealthy and privileged through unfair advantages, were nevertheless superb at what they did. [...] Sharpe did not care that Sir Arthur Wellesley was the son of an aristocrat and had purchased his way up the ladder of promotion and was as cold as a lawyer's sense of charity. The long-nosed bugger knew how to win and that was what mattered.
Bernard Cornwell
Any officer given the money to buy promotion and lucky enough to possess relations who could put him in the way of advancement was bound to rise, but even the less fortunate men who resented Wellesley's privileges were forced to admit that the young Colonel had a natural and chilling authority, and maybe, some thought, even a talent for soldiering. He was certainly dedicated enough to his chosen trade if that was any sign of talent.
Bernard Cornwell
It was just a bowl of peasant's clay, red brown in color, thickly made and rough to the touch, not perfectly round, with a small indentation on one side where the potter had damaged the unfired clay. It was worth pennies, perhaps nothing. Yet it was the greatest treasure of Christendom. And he kissed it once, and then he drew back his strong archer's right arm, ran down to the sucking sea's edge, and threw it as far and as hard as he could. He hurled it away and it span for an instant above the gray waves, seemed to fly a heartbeat longer as if it were reluctant to let go of mankind, and then the bowl was gone.
Bernard Cornwell
