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One book at a time... though I'm usually doing the research for others while I'm writing, but that sort of research is fairly desultory and I like to stick to the book being written - and writing a book concentrates the mind so the research is more productive.
Bernard Cornwell -
Death was so channeled and directed by this staircase, yet Sharpe had learned that the steps a man feared most were the ones that had to be taken. He climbed.
Bernard Cornwell
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'If I take a man into battle, my lord, i like to offer him a better than even chance that he'll march away with his skin intact. If I wanted to kill the buggers I'd just strangle them in their sleep. It's kinder.'
Bernard Cornwell -
'Whoa there, lad! Whoa! Gentle now! Die well, die well.'
Bernard Cornwell -
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.
Bernard Cornwell -
The British army fought against other infantry arrayed in two ranks and every man could use his musket, and if cavalry threatened they marched and wheeled into a square of four ranks, and still every man could use his musket, but the soldiers at the heart of the two French columns could never fire without hitting the men in front.
Bernard Cornwell -
'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.'
Bernard Cornwell -
I doubt I called him illegitimate, sir. I wouldn't use that sort of word. I probably called him a bastard.
Bernard Cornwell
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'It is you, sir?' 'Sergeant Barret, isn't it?' 'Yes, sir.' 'It is me' They bloody hung you, sir.' 'This army can't do anything right, Sergeant.'
Bernard Cornwell -
...all battles had to be fought one step at a time. No point in worrying about the future if there was to be no future, so he and and Harper worked patiently away.
Bernard Cornwell -
'Would you give my warmest regards to Sir Arthur Wellesley? Or Lord Wellington as we must now call him.' 'You know him, sir?' 'Of course. We were at the Royal Academy of Equiation together, at Angers. It's strange, Major, how your greatest soldier was taught to fight in France.'
Bernard Cornwell -
Looking back, of course, it was irresponsible, mad, forlorn, idiotic, but if you don't take chances then you'll never have a winning hand, and I've no regrets.
Bernard Cornwell -
Sir Thomas was a sentimental man. He loved Soldiers. He had once thought all men who wore the red coat were rogues and thieves, the scourings of the gutters, and since he had joined the army he had discovered he was right, but he had also learned to love them. He loved their patience, their ferocity, their endurance, and their bravery.
Bernard Cornwell -
Sharpe, Lossow suspected, often got what he wanted, but the achievements never seemed to satisfy. His friend, the German decided, was like a man who, searching for a crock of gold, found ten and rejected them all because the pots were the wrong shape.
Bernard Cornwell
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'Made in Sheffield, and guaranteed never to fail! Good slicer this is, real good. You can cut a man in half with one of these if you get the stroke right.'
Bernard Cornwell -
A charge of knights was supposed to be thundering death on hooves, a flail of metal driven by the ponderous weight of men, horses and armor, and properly done, it was a mass maker of widows.
Bernard Cornwell -
'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.'
Bernard Cornwell -
Remember, Mr Sharpe, an officer's eyes are more valuable than his sword!
Bernard Cornwell -
It seemed that if someone was lost in Copenhagen then the citizens regarded it as their duty to offer help.
Bernard Cornwell -
'There's a great bloody mine, sir! Just waiting to kill our lads! I ain't letting that happen. You can do what you bloody well like, but I'm going to kill some more of these bastards.'
Bernard Cornwell
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The first bombs looked like livid shooting stars. Then, as they began their shrieking fall, the bomb trails converged. God had not shown mercy, the British possessed none and Copenhagen must suffer.
Bernard Cornwell -
'The more I see of families ... the happier I am to be an orphan.'
Bernard Cornwell -
'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.'
Bernard Cornwell -
'So I do my duty, and land in the shit.' 'You have at last seized the essence of soldiering.'
Bernard Cornwell