367 Quotes by Bernard Cornwell

Love’s madness, swinging from ecstasy to despair in one wild second.

This isn’t just a war over land, it’s a war about God. And Alfred... is Christ’s servant...

If an oath is a mistake then you are still obligated because you are sworn to it.

And that, too, was the truth, that a man cannot step back from a fight and stay a man. We make much in this life if we are able. We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation. I could not walk away.

I’ll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.

You’ll call me a damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of christian children.” This was all said cheerfully. “How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn life’s lessons.

War is fought in mystery. The truth can take days to travel, and ahead of truth flies rumor, and it is ever hard to know what is really happening, and the art of it is to pluck the clean bone of fact from the rotting flesh of fear and lies.

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.

History is not just a tale of men’s making, but is a thing tied to the land. We call a hill by the name of a hero who died there, or name a river after a princess who fled beside its banks, and when the old names vanish, the stories go with them and the new names carry no reminder of the past.