Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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'I assume I'm expendable, sir.' 'You're a soldier, aren't you? Of course you're expendable!' Sharpe was still smiling. He was a soldier, and a lady needed recuing, and was that not what soldiers throughout history had done?
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We have honour, Sharpe. That is our private strength, our honour. We're Soldiers, you and I. We cannot expect riches, or dignity, or continual victory. We will die, probably, in battle, or in a fever ward, and no one will remember us, so all that is left is honour.
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'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.'
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Thank God for the hours of training, thank God that, for all its sometimes stupidity, the British army was the only army that trained its infantry with real ammunition.
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He was not certain why he was sure of defeat. It was, perhaps, that he admired Wellington. The English General had a mind of fine calculation that appealed to Ducos, who did not believe that the vainglorious Marshals of France had the measure of the Englishman. The Emperor, now, he was different. He would out-calculate and outfight any man.
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A man could fight bullets and bayonets, even rockets if he understood the weapon, but no man understood the invisible enemies. Sharpe wished he knew how to propitiate Fate, the soldiers' Goddess, but She was a capricious deity, without loyalty.
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'You want me to go into a sewer, Mister Sharpe?' Sarah asked in a small voice.'No, miss, I don't', Sharpe said. 'I want you to be in green fields and happy, with enough money to last you the rest of your life. But to get you there I have to go through a sewer.'
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What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.
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'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.'
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I'm fortunate that the books sell, but even more fortunate to live in Chatham, to be very happily married and to have, on the whole, a fairly clear conscience.
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Sharpe's sword was lucky. There was a soldier's goddess and her name was Fate and she had liked the sword Harper made for Sharpe. The Kligenthal was stained with the blood of friends, with the torture of flayed priests, and the beautiful sword contained not luck, but evil.
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'Can't help our damned parents which is why we have to thrash our damned children'
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There's no chance of cheering him up, sir. He likes being miserable, so he does, and the bastard will get over it.
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He had an inspiration and went to the Quinta's kitchen and stole two large tins of tea. He reckoned it was time Kate did something for her country and there were few finer gestures than donating good China tea to riflemen.
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The Major was a courteous man, judicious and sensible, but he doubted the fighting efficiency of the South Essex would be improved by a campaign to improve its manners.
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Some deaths a man can enjoy, the death of an enemy, and Sharpe was paid to have enemies. Yet he did not wish death on the French. There was more satisfaction in seeing a surrendered enemy, a defeated enemy, than in seeing a slaughtered enemy.
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'We have to level the ground, Sir, because God didn't think of gunners when he made the world. He made too many lumps and not enough smooth spots. But we're very good at improving His handiwork, sir.'
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'It's a real language lesson', said Sarah after a while.'I'm sorry, miss', Sharpe said.'You sort of don't notice when you're in the army', Harper explained.'Do all soldiers swear?'All of them', Sharpe said. 'All of the time.'
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He could chafe against the rich and privileged but he acknowledged that the army had taken him from the gutter and put an officer's sash round his waiste and Sharpe could think of no other job that would offer a low-born bastard on the run from the law the chance of rank and responsibility.
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Sharpe bellowed in anger, the war shout. They thought him weak and beaten, but he had one fight in him and they would learn what a Rifleman was in a fight.
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Good plain soldiering wins wars. Doing mundane things well is what counts.
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She had been restless and forceful, a killer of the border hills, yet she had a childlike faith in love. She had given herself to him and never doubted the wisdom of the gift as he had sometimes doubted it. She had kept the faith, and she was dead.
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'Look after him, Lieutenant. An army isn't made of it's officers, you know, though we officers like to think it is. An army is no better than its men, and when you find good men, you must look after them. That's an officer's job.'
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'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.'