All you need to know, boy," Final growled, "is that Lord Hired's side is the one that wins.

— Bernard Cornwell

And I looked,' Prig said to me, 'and I saw a pale horse, and the rider's name was death.' I just stared in amazement. 'It's in the gospel book,' he explained sheepishly, 'and it just came to mind.

— Bernard Cornwell

An enemy sees his attackers laughing? It is better than all the insults. A man who laughs as he goes into battle is a man who has confidence, and a man with confidence is terrifying to an enemy. “For the whore!” I shouted.

— Bernard Cornwell

An English man-at-arms had his helmet split open and his skull with it, so that he rode wavering from the fight, blood pouring down his mail coat. His horse stopped a few paces from the turmoil and the man-at-arms slowly, so slowly, bent forward and then slumped down from his saddle. One foot was trapped in a stirrup as he died, but his horse did not seem to notice. It just went on cropping the grass.

— Bernard Cornwell

A sad, plangent music. In the British camp, Sharpe thought, they would be singing, but no one was singing here.

— Bernard Cornwell

But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death.

— Bernard Cornwell

But we do not choose our deaths. The Horns do that at the foot of Yggdrasil and I imagined one of those three Fates holding the shears above my thread. She was ready to cut, and all that mattered now was to keep tight hold of my sword so that the winged women would take me to Valhalla's feasting-hall.

— Bernard Cornwell

But when you have order, you don't need Gods. When everything is well-ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected. If you understand everything,' I said carefully, 'then there's no room left for magic. It's only when you're lost and frightened and in the dark that you call on the Gods, and they like us to call on them. It makes them feel powerful, and that's why they like us to live in chaos.

— Bernard Cornwell

Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.

— Bernard Cornwell

Do you ever read the scriptures?"" Every day," I said enthusiastically, "not a moment passes that I don't have a quick read of Jeremiah or dip into Ezekiel." She smiled, amused. "What a barbarian you are!

— Bernard Cornwell