Bernard Cornwell

“Serpent-Breath was in my hand and anger in my soul.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“ignored Truslow, trusting instead in the Colonel’s largesse.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“Doubtless there were insanely frenzied warriors, but there is no evidence that lunatic nudists made regular appearances on the battlefield.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“I sometimes think,' Merlin said when no more suggestions were offered, 'that I am doomed to live among idiots.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“The gods are capricious, and I was about to amuse them. And Alfred was right. I was a fool.”

— Bernard Cornwell

Life is a jest of the Gods and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh… or else you'll weep yourself…

— Bernard Cornwell

Agents will read unpublished work because they might make money, and that's their job. It isn't mine.

— Bernard Cornwell

A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.

— Bernard Cornwell

“Children born to unwed mothers,’ he said after a long silence, ‘have parts of their souls missing.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“Start your killers young, before their consciences are grown. Start them young and they will be lethal.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“I hated Alfred. He was a miserable, pious, tight-fisted king who distrusted me because I was no Christian, because I was a…

— Bernard Cornwell

“‎"He sang the song of the sword, keening as he fed his blade, and Rollo, standing thigh-deep in the creek, ax swinging…

— Bernard Cornwell

So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like…

— Bernard Cornwell

“When you are young and powerless you dream of possessing mystical strength, and once you are grown and strong you condemn lesser…

— Bernard Cornwell

“When those blades cut, they cause tears that feed the well of Urdr that lies beside the world tree, and the well…

— Bernard Cornwell

I'm fortunate that the books sell, but even more fortunate to live in Chatham, to be very happily married and to have,…

— Bernard Cornwell

One book at a time... though I'm usually doing the research for others while I'm writing, but that sort of research is…

— Bernard Cornwell

We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing…

— Bernard Cornwell

“To hear the tales told at night-time hearths you would think we had made a whole new country in Britain, named it…

— Bernard Cornwell

“Priests come to my home beside the northern sea where they find an old man, and they tell me I am just…

— Bernard Cornwell

“When we are young, we yearn for battle. In the firelit halls we listen to the songs of heroes; how they broke…

— 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…

— Bernard Cornwell

“Gods fight, Ragnar went on earnestly, and some win, some lose. The Christian god is losing. Otherwise why would we be here?…

— Bernard Cornwell

“Thomas nodded towards Keane. 'He doesn't want to be a priest and you don't want to be a monk. Now you're both…

— Bernard Cornwell

“I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence…

— Bernard Cornwell

“You're giving up the hunt for de Taillebourg?' Thomas asked. He had learned the priest's name from Robbie. 'No.' Robbie still had…

— Bernard Cornwell

You won't regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.

— Bernard Cornwell

“She was as faithful as a morning mist, as hard as a sword-bayonet, and that, he thought, made her a suitable reward…

— Bernard Cornwell

Research is a lifelong occupation so it's hard to factor it in, but I reckon most books take 5 months from start…

— Bernard Cornwell

“When men do evil and claim that they are doing God’s work, then they are at their most dangerous.”

— Bernard Cornwell

At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

— Bernard Cornwell

“The law. we are told, is what makes us men under God instead of beasts in the ditch”

— Bernard Cornwell

“superb book Mercia and the Making of England (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2000).”

— Bernard Cornwell

“I learned that the joy and the fear are the exact same things, the one merely transformed into the other by action,”

— Bernard Cornwell

“The law says I own that land, and the law, we are told, is what makes us men under God instead of…

— Bernard Cornwell

“I'm in pain all the time,' I said, 'and if I gave into it then I'd do nothing.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“Dizem que este Deus (deus cristão) é do perdão. Melhor ofender um desses do que qualquer outro.”

— Bernard Cornwell

“ Harlequin , probably derived from the old French Hellequin : a troop of the devil’s horsemen.”

— Bernard Cornwell

It's fun. I sit down every day and tell stories. Some folk would kill to get that chance.

— Bernard Cornwell

“Dreams are like songs. Their task is not to offer an exact image of the world, but a suggestion of it.”

— Bernard Cornwell