“Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“She is a woman, and what women want, they get, and if the world and all it holds must be broken in the getting, then so be it.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“My dear Lord,’ I said, but not to him. I spoke to Arthur. And I watched and wept, my arm around Ceinwyn, as the pale boat was swallowed by the shimmering silver mist. And so my Lord was gone. And no one has seen him since.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“Dreams are like songs. Their task is not to offer an exact image of the world, but a suggestion of it.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“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.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“Guinevere grimaced. ‘Do you know how cloying love can be, Derfel? I don’t want to be worshipped. I don’t want every whim granted. I want to feel there’s something biting back.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“And afterwards, you recall little, except the blows that so nearly killed you. You work and push and stab to make an opening in their shield wall. And then you grunt and lunge and slash to widen the gap. And only then does the madness take over. As the enemy breaks and you can begin to kill like a god. Because the enemy is scared and running or scared and frozen. And all they can do is die while you harvest souls.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“- Nós queremos a fidelidade nas pessoas que amamos, senhora, então não é óbvio que elas a queiram em nós? A fidelidade é um presente que oferecemos aos que amamos.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“Christianity is not a religion that offers the solace of revenge to its adherents. For that you must go to the old women who know which herbs to pluck and what charms to say under a waning moon.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“So now I shall write the tale’s ending with my sword beside me and I shall hope that I am given time to finish this tale of Arthur, my Lord, who was betrayed, reviled and, after his departure, missed like no other man was ever missed in all of Britain’s history.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“So, in the morning light, where they flapped in the drying wind, the bear and the star defied the Saxons.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“Quando a gente está com problemas é útil descobrir alguém que esteve na mesma dificuldade.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“there was something about Gawain’s youth and credulity that was driving me to puncture his pious innocence.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Excalibur
“His lips were at my ear again. “Do you want me, Shannon?”
My legs began to tremble. “Yes.”
― Samantha Young, quote from Echoes of Scotland Street
“It was mankind and not the Almighty that had ordered the universe; only a man could look at an accident and call it a creation with Himself at the centre.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea
“Long long ago down the browning decades, in the light of the old century in Carolina, walked a toddling child, a wary boy, a strong young male of muscle, blood, and brain who saw, who laughed and listened, smelled and touched, ate, drank, and bred, occupying time and space with his getting and spending in the world. What his biographer will strive to recover is a true sense of this human being, with all his particularity and hope and promise, in the hope that the reader might understand who the grown man might have become had he not known too much of privation, rage, and loss.”
― Peter Matthiessen, quote from Shadow Country
“Čudno je to. Kad čoveka obuzme neka misao, onda je nalazi svuda, čak je i miriše u vetru.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger
“Finding himself now attacked on all hands with naked poniards, he wrapped the toga 96 about his head, and at the same moment drew the skirt round his legs with his left hand, that he might fall more decently with the lower part of his body covered. He was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, uttering a groan only, but no cry, at the first wound; although some authors relate, that when Marcus Brutus fell upon him, he exclaimed, "What! art thou, too, one of them? Thou, my son!" 97 The whole assembly instantly (52) dispersing, he lay for some time after he expired, until three of his slaves laid the body on a litter, and carried it home, with one arm hanging down over the side.”
― Suetonius, quote from The Twelve Caesars
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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