Bernard Cornwell Quotes

86 Sourced Quotes

"She's like a woman, sir, take care of her and she'll take care of you."
"You'll notice he let Mister Sharpe do the ramming, sir."

Bernard Cornwell
"Don't waste your life, Tom."
"I think I already have, father."
"You're just young. It seems like that when you're young. Life's nothing but joy or misery when you're young."

Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe knew himself to be a tough man, but he had always thought of himself as a reasonable one, yet now, in the mirror of William's nervousness, he saw himself as something far worse; a bullying man who would use the small authority of his rank to frighten men. In fact, the very kind of officer Sharpe had most hated when he himself was under their embittered authority.

Bernard Cornwell
He had thought the army would pay for the voyage, but the army had refused, saying that Sharpe was accepting an invitation to join the 95th Rifles and if the 95th Rifles refused to pay his passage then damn them, damn their badly colored coats, and damn Sharpe. [...] Britain had sent Sharpe to India, and Britain, Sharpe reckoned, should fetch him back.

Bernard Cornwell
Chase was easy in command and that ease did not diminish his authority, but simply made the men work harder. [...] Sharpe watched Chase for he reckoned he had still a lot to learn about the subtle business of leading men. He saw that the Captain did not secure his authority by recourse to punishment, but rather by expecting high standards and rewarding them. He also hid his doubts.

Bernard Cornwell
"They're drunk sods, sir, but they're the best Soldiers in the world. The very best." And he meant it. They were the elite, the damned, the Rifles. They were Soldiers in green. They were Sharpe's Rifles.

Bernard Cornwell
Unfairness existed, it always had and it always would, and the miracle, to Sharpe's eyes, was that some men like Hill and Wellesley, though they had become wealthy and privileged through unfair advantages, were nevertheless superb at what they did. [...] Sharpe did not care that Sir Arthur Wellesley was the son of an aristocrat and had purchased his way up the ladder of promotion and was as cold as a lawyer's sense of charity. The long-nosed bugger knew how to win and that was what mattered.

Bernard Cornwell
"Your nephew plays."
"My nephew and his friends practice."
"He would do better to look to his soul."
"He has no soul, he's a soldier."

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
And the good news is that you've got a brain. You do! Honest! I saw it with my own eyes, thus disproving the navy's stubborn contention that soldiers have nothing whatsoever inside their skulls. I shall write a paper for the Review. I'll be famous! Brain discovered in a soldier.

Bernard Cornwell
"If you believe in a God, miss, pray now."
"You don't?"
"I believe in the Baker rifle and in the 1796 Pattern heavy cavalry sword, so long as you grind down the back blade so that the point don't slide off a Frog's ribs. If you you don't grind down the back blade, miss, then you might as well just beat the bastards to death with it."

Bernard Cornwell
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!

Bernard Cornwell
There's a great blood 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
Put a British Soldier in a wilderness and he would soon discover a taproom.

Bernard Cornwell
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.

Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe could feel the excitement of the Company, their confidence, and he marvelled at it. They were enjoying it, taking on sixteen times their number, and he did not understand that it was because of him. Harper knew, Knowles knew, that the tall Rifle Captain who was not given to rousing speeches could nevertheless make men feel that the impossible was just a little troublesome and that victory was a commonplace where he led.

Bernard Cornwell
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.

Bernard Cornwell
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.

Bernard Cornwell
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.

Bernard Cornwell
The defenders were hunted down and killed. Even when they tried to surrender, they were killed, for their fortress had resisted and that was the fate of garrisons that showed defiance.

Bernard Cornwell
They thought war was a game and every defeat only made them more eager to play.

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
We celebrate kings, we honor great men, we admire aristocrats, we applaud actors, we shower gold on portrait painters and we even, sometimes, reward soldiers, but we always despise merchants.

Bernard Cornwell
"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."

Bernard Cornwell
The real noise was of musketry, the pounding cough of volley fire, the relentless noise, and if he listened hard he could hear the balls striking on muskets and pounding into flesh. He could also hear the cries of the wounded and the screams of officers' horses put down by the balls. And he was amazed, as he always was, by the courage of the French. They were being struck hard, yet they stayed. They stayed behind a straggling heap of dead men, they edged aside to let the wounded crawl behind, they reloaded and fired, and all the time the volleys kept coming.

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
Good plain soldiering wins wars. Doing mundane things well is what counts.

Bernard Cornwell
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.

Bernard Cornwell
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.

Bernard Cornwell