Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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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.
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Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.
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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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'So I do my duty, and land in the shit.' 'You have at last seized the essence of soldiering.'
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Sharpe had been turbulent, ambitious, but one day, Hogan supposed, that restlessness would have found satisfaction. Then, curiously, Hogan found himself resenting Sharpe, resenting him because he had been killed and was thus denying his friendship to those who still lived.
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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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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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All gunners were deaf, they said. They were the kings of the battlefield and they never heard the applause.
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At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.
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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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'You've never heard of Paul Revere?' 'No.' 'Lucky man, Sharpe. He called my father a traitor, and our family called Revere a traitor, and I rather think we lost the argument.'
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'There are rules, orders, regulations, Sharpe, by which our lives are conducted. If we ignore those rules, burdensome though they may be, then we open the gates to anarchy and tyranny; the very things against which we fight!'
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'They like the idea of recusing women. ... Everyone hates the bloody army till someone needs rescuing, then we're all bloody heroes and white knights.'
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'It ain't justice, Richard, but politics, and like all politics it ain't pretty, but well done it can work wonders.'