Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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He had been a tough, cheerful youngster, the sort who collected birds' eggs, scrapped with other boys and climbed the church tower on a dare, and now he was a tough cheerful young man who thought that being an officer in Lawford's regiment was just about the finest thing life could afford. He liked soldiering and he liked soldiers.
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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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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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'They'll bloody kill you.' 'Maybe they'll turn and run. 'God save Ireland, and why would they do that?' 'Because God wears a green jacket, of course.'
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'They're not going, sir. Not going South.' 'And who made that decision, Sergeant?' 'We all did, sir.' 'Since when, Sergeant, has this army been a... a democracy?' 'A what, sir?' 'Since when did Sergeants outrank Lieutenants?'
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Judy couldn't move to Britain for family reasons, so I had to come to the States, and the U.S. government wouldn't give me a Green Card, so I airily told her I'd write a book.
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'What we should have done, lads, is gone north.'
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'I think the Holy Grail is a dream that men have, a dream that the world can be made perfect. And if it existed, then we'd all know the dream can't come true.'
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Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran toward them.
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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.'
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The Marques' thought he had the Rifleman beaten, but all he had done was to make the Rifleman fight. This no longer looked like a duel to d'Alembord; it looked like a brawl leading to slaughter.
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It's fun. I sit down every day and tell stories. Some folk would kill to get that chance.
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The Tippoo still led the fight. ... Those gaudy stones made him a target for every redcoat and sepoy, yet he insisted on staying in the very front rank where he could pour his rifle fire at the stalled attackers, and his charms worked, for though the bullets flicked close none hit him. He was the Tiger of Mysore, he could not die, only kill.
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'Why do they call them vaulters?' 'Vaulters?' 'Voltigeur, Sharpe. French for vaulter.' 'God knows, sir.' 'Because the jump like fleas, sir, when you shoot at them. But don't worry yourself about that one, sir. He's a good voltigeur, that one. He's dead.'
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'You can keep your sword, for you fought proper. Like a proper soldier. Take your blade to paradise, and tell them you were killed by another proper soldier.'
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'My God, but I command King Ferdinand's guard and-' 'And King Ferdinand, sir, is a prisoner! Which does not speak, sir, for the efficacy of his guard.'
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'We asked for them in February. It's June now; they must be coming.' 'They've been saying that about Christ for eighteen hundred years.'
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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.
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You're a light company, and that means you can go where other Soldier's can't. It makes you an elite. You know what that means? It means you're the best men in the bloody army, and right now the army needs its best men. It needs you.
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Writing is a solitary occupation.
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'You had no choice, sir.' 'There's always a choice.'
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'It is not wise, I think, to mix private revenge with war.' 'Of course it's not wise, but it's bloody enjoyable. Enjoying yourself, Sergeant?' 'Never been happier, sir.'
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I doubt I called him illegitimate, sir. I wouldn't use that sort of word. I probably called him a bastard.