Men do not relish the shield wall. They do not rush to death's embrace. You look ahead and see the overlapping shields, the helmets, the glint of axes and spears and swords, and you know you must go into the reach of those blades, into the place of death, and it takes time to summon the courage, to heat the blood, to let the madness overtake caution.

~ Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell Battle Shield Wall Uhtred War

Serpent-Breath was famous...Wasp-Sting, short and lethal.

~ Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell Battle Sword Uhtred

If they saw men swarming up the wall, if they saw the axes chopping at our shields on the wall’s top, then they would join the battle. Men want to be on the winning side.

~ Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell Battle Shield Wall Winner

Father Hobbe, his cassock skirts hitched up to his waist, was fighting with a quarterstaff, ramming the pole into French faces. ‘In the name of the Father,’ he shouted, and a Frenchman reeled back with a pulped eye, ‘and of the Son,’ Father Hobbe snarled as he broke a man’s nose, ‘and of the Holy Ghost!

~ Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell English Father Hobbe Fighting French Priest Quarterstaff

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

~ Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell On Writing Readers And Writers Writing Craft

What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.

~ Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell Life Mountains See