Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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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.'
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'So I do my duty, and land in the shit.' 'You have at last seized the essence of soldiering.'
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'The more I see of families ... the happier I am to be an orphan.'
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If you capture a ship, Sharpe, you keep the old name unless it's really obnoxious. Nelson took the Franklin at the Nile, an eighty gun thing of great beauty, but the navy will be damned if it has a ship named after a traitorous bloody Yankee so we call her the Canopus now.
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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.
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'The Major's a grand big fellow, so he is.' 'So what are we? The damned?' 'We're that, sure enough, but we're also Riflemen, sir. You and me, we're the best God-damned Soldiers in the world.'
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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.
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I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.
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'What do you think?' 'Sir?' 'Frightening? Did you ever learn mathematics?' 'Yes, sir.' 'So add up how many Frenchmen can actually use their muskets.'
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They haven't made an armor strong enought to resist an English arrow.
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Here, in this filthy stench of powder smoke, he felt at home. Other men learned how to plough fields or to shape wood, but Sharpe had learned how to use a musket or rifle, sword or bayonet, and how to turn an enemy's flank or assault a fortress.
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I know nothing about producing TV drama and any involvement on my part is liable to prove an obstacle to the producers, so I prefer to be a cheerleader and let them get on with it.
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A Marshal of France is a fine fellow, second only to the Emperor, and he wore a dark blue uniform edged with golden leaves, and his collar and shoulders were heavy with gilt decorations. A Marshal of France was given privileges, riches, and honour, but they had to be earned by answering the difficult questions.
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'The Irish are very largely Romish, Sharpe. Papists! We shall have to watch our theological discourse if we're not to unsettle their tempers! You and I might know that the pope is the reincarnation of the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, but it won't help our cause if we say it out loud. Know what I mean?'
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He's actually a rather good ruler. Better, I suspect, than most of our Christian monarchs. He's certainly been good for Mysore. He's fetched it a deal of wealth, given it more justice than most countries enjoy in India and he's been tolerant to most religions, though I fear he did persecute some unfortunate Christians.
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For five thousand infantry would now cross the Kaitna at a place where men said the river was uncrossable, then fight an enemy horde at least ten times their number. ... The enemy had stolen a march, the redcoats had journeyed all night and were bone tired, but Wellesley would have his battle.
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'Sensible thing to do, is for us to bugger off out of here and got to bed.' 'Sensible thing to do, is get out the bloody army and die in bed.' 'But that's not why we joined, is it?' 'Speak for yourself, sir. I just joined to get a square meal. Getting killed wasn't really part of the idea at all.'
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Your friend Will is a good man, too,but I fear he's no longer an archer.' 'It would have been better, I sometimes think-' 'If he had died? Wish death on no man, Thomas, it comes soon enough without a wish.'
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I remember one other battle, gentlemen, which almost matched our recent victory in carnage. After Assaye I had to thank a young Sergeant; today we salute the same man, a Captain. Gentlemen, I give you Sharpe's Eagle.
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Book tours and research provide a lot of travel - too much, I sometimes think, but we do take vacations.
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'You want a blessing, my son? Then God give strength to your bow and add bite to your arrows! May your arm never tire and your eye never dim. God and the saints bless you while you kill!'
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The Light Company were not worried by the French. If Richard Sharpe wanted to lead them to Paris they would go, blindly confident that he would see them through
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To say anything was useless, to say nothing was cowardly. 'I think it a bad idea, Sir.'
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What did he want? A tournament? Who does he think we are? The knights of the round bloody table? I don't know what happens to some folk. They put a sir in front of their names and their brains get addled. Fighting fair! Whoever heard of anything so daft? Fight fair and you lose.