Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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You know what the trick of a long life is, Sharpe? Stay out of range.
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'In the short time I've known you, Richard, I've noticed you possess a lamentable tendency to put on shining armor and look for ladies to rescue. King Arthur, God rest his soul, would have loved you. He'd have had you fighting every evil knight in the forest.'
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'Never in my life have I seen two villages on opposite banks of a river that weren't connected by a ford.'
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The defenders were hunted down and killed. Even when they tried to surrender, they were killed, for their fortress had resisted and that was the fate of garrisons that showed defiance.
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'You know how to deal with senior officers?' 'Respectfully.' 'Confuse them. Except for the ones who can't be confused, like Wellington.'
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'Our duty, Richard, is to be decorative and stay alive long enough to be promoted. But no one expects us to be useful! Good God! A junior officer being useful? That'll be the day.'
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'Learning is sacred ... it goes above boundaries.'
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Anyone who claims to have an entirely clear conscience is almost certainly a bore.
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'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.'
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A soldier's death, he thought, was a happy one, because a man, even in the throes of awful pain, would die in the best company of the world.
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Television is a young person's medium.
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So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries.
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'They're drunk sods, sir, but they're the best Soldiers in the world. The very best.' And he meant it. They were the elite, the damned, the Rifles. They were Soldiers in green. They were Sharpe's Rifles.
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And yes, there's a simplicity to writing books because you're not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee.
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'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.'
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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.
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'Don't waste your life, Tom.' 'I think I already have, father.' 'You're just young. It seems like that when you're young. Life's nothing but joy or misery when you're young.'
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The Hanoverian knew the cavalry was no danger. It was the infantry, the unstoppable red-jacketed infantry, that was going to beat him ... He stared at the 78th and he reckoned that no force on earth could stop such men. 'The best damn infantry on earth. Watch them! You'll not see better fighting men while you live!'
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'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.'
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An archer does not aim, he kills.
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'Your nephew plays.' 'My nephew and his friends practice.' 'He would do better to look to his soul.' 'He has no soul, he's a soldier.'
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'If you believe in a God, miss, pray now.' 'You don't?' 'I believe in the Baker rifle and in the 1796 Pattern heavy cavalry sword, so long as you grind down the back blade so that the point don't slide off a Frog's ribs. If you you don't grind down the back blade, miss, then you might as well just beat the bastards to death with it.'
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En Masse. It was the French way, the method that had brought victory to the armies of the Empire, the irresistible mass. Throw the mass like a human missile at the Castle's defenders, overwhelm them with targets, terrify them with the massed drummers in the column's centre, and push over the dead to victory.
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Arthur Wellesley had waited six years for this moment. He was twenty-nine years old and had begun to fear that he would never see battle, but now, at last, he would discover whether he and his regiment could fight, and so he filled his lungs to give the order that would start the slaughter.