“I am not sure,' Mordecai told Thomas, 'whether omens can be trusted.'
'Of course they can.'
'I should like to hear your reasons. But show me your urine first.'
'You said I was cured,' Thomas protested. 'Eternal vigilance, dear Thomas, is the price of health. Piss for me.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“It was while he was on the tower that
Robbie came to the rampart beneath.
'I want you to look at this,' Robbie called up to him, and flourished a newly painted shield. 'You like it?'
Thomas peered down and, in the moonlight, saw something red. 'What is it?' he asked. 'A blood smear?'
'You blind English bastard,' Robbie said, 'it's the red heart of Douglas!'
'Ah. From up here it looks like
something died on the shield.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“People like mystery. They want nothing explained, because when things are explained then there is no hope left. I have seen folk dying and known there is nothing to be done, and I am asked to go because the priest will soon arrive with his dish covered by a cloth, and everyone prays for a miracle. It never happens. And the person dies and I get blamed, not God or the priest, but I!”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“You're giving up the hunt for de Taillebourg?' Thomas asked. He had learned the priest's name from Robbie. 'No.' Robbie still had his head back as he stared at the magnificence of the transept's ceiling. 'I'll find him and then I'll gralloch the bastard.' Thomas did not know what gralloch meant, but decided the word was bad news for de Taillebourg.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“Does that girl work here?' Robbie asked, gesturing at the screen behind which Mary had disappeared. 'All her life,' Sir Giles said. 'You remember Mary, Thomas?' 'I tried to drown her when we were both children,' Thomas said.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“The first stone, thrown by Hellgiver, crashed through the roof of a dyer's house close to St Brieuc's church and took off the heads of an English man-at-arms and the dyer's wife. A joke went through the garrison that the two bodies were so crushed together by the boulder that they would go on coupling throughout eternity.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“The Holy Grail, the most precious of all Christ’s bequests to man, lost these thousand years and more, and he could see it glowing in the sky like shining blood and about it, bright as the glittering crown of a saint, rays of dazzling shimmer filled the heaven. Thomas”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
“If the leader is a good man he will be liked and if he’s not, he won’t, and if he is a good man and a bad leader then he is better off dead.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Vagabond
Bernard Cornwell
Born place: in London, England, The United Kingdom
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“I didn’t sneer!” said Juliana hastily. “I’d no notion you behaved so dreadfully badly to her. You said
you forced her aboard your yacht, but I never supposed that you really frightened her enough to make
her fire at you. You need not be in a rage with me for saying so, Dominic, but when I saw Mary at
your house she was so placid I made sure you’d not treated her so very brutally after all. Had you?”
“Yes,” said Vidal bluntly. He looked at Juliana. “You think it was vastly romantic for Mary to be
carried off by me, don’t you? You think you would enjoy it, and you cannot conceive how she should
be afraid, can you? Then think, my girl! Think a little! You are in my power at this moment, I may
remind you. What if I make you feel it? What if I say to start with that you shall eat your dinner, and
force it down your throat?”
Juliana shrank back from him involuntarily. “Don’t, Vidal! Don’t come near me!” she said, frightened
by the expression in his face.
He laughed. “Not so romantic, is it, Ju? And to force you to eat your dinner would be a small thing
compared with some other things I might force you to do. Sit down, I’m not going to touch you.”
She obeyed, eyeing him nervously. “I—I wish I hadn’t come with you!” she said.
“So did Mary, with more reason. But Mary would have died sooner than let me see that she was afraid.
And Mary, my love, is not my cousin.”
― Georgette Heyer, quote from Devil's Cub
“The largest egg in comparison with the size of the bird is that of the little spotted kiwi. Its egg accounts for 26 percent of its own weight: the equivalent of a woman giving birth to a six-year-old child.”
― John Lloyd, quote from The Book of General Ignorance
“The evidence of history is against you. The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. It is a question of getting the true perspective, of seeing things in proportion.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Mysterious Mr. Quin
“When it's all said and done, the only thing that matter in life are so damn simple. Family, friends. being safe and well. I think before the war a lot of people got sucked in by the crap on TV. They thought having the right shoes or the right jeans or the right car really mattered. Boy were we ever dumb.”
― John Marsden, quote from The Night Is for Hunting
“A sated belly gave Americans the luxury of praising themselves for being good parents, as if caring for one's child was the exception rather than the rule.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, quote from The Thing Around Your Neck
Creation
Incidents in the Lif...
The Round House
Demons of the Ocean
Amadeus
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