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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 3a2885f | It is a terrible thing," Beocca said to me. "War, it is an awful thing." I said nothing. I thought it was glorious and wonderful. "The shield wall is where men die," Beocca said, and he kissed the wooden cross that hung about his neck. "The gates of heaven and hell will be jostling with souls before this day is done," he went on gloomily." | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| b72926e | Yule is supposed to be a celebration and a consolation, a moment of warm brightness in the heart of winter, a time to eat because you know that the lean times are coming when food will be scarce and ice locks the land, and a time to be happy and get drunk and behave irresponsibly and wake up the next morning wondering if you will ever feel well again, but the West Saxons handed the feast to the priests who made it as joyous as a funeral. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 3afac1c | My son smiled. "You taught me well, Father." "What did I teach you?" "That a spear-point in a prisoner's liver is a very persuasive thing." | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 6faaeb4 | Non volevo parlare con Artu e non volevo vederlo. Salii sul promontorio e pregai gli dei, implorandoli di tornare in Britannia. Mentre pregavo, gli uomini del Kernow condussero la regina Isotta fino alla baia dove erano in attesa le due scure navi. I guerrieri, pero, non la riportarono nel Kenow. Invece di ritornare a casa, la principessa degli Ui Liathain, quella bambina di quindici anni che correva a piedi nudi nelle onde e che aveva la v.. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 98175cc | If the Danes are outnumbered," my father told me that night, "they won't fight. They're like dogs, the Danes. Cowards at heart, but they're given courage by being in a pack." | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 9a83217 | A trial relied heavily on oaths, but both sides would bring as many liars as they could muster, and judgment usually went to the better liars or, if both sides were equally convincing, to the side who had the sympathy of the onlookers. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 5bd8bec | The wheel of fortune that had once raised her so high had taken her into the utter depths. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| ddbbf64 | Why do they put cows over the gates, sir?" "For the same reason we put images of a tortured man in our churches. Religion. You ask too many questions, Sharpe." | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 7be8eb6 | Because there could not be peace, not while two tribes shared one land. One tribe must win. Even the nailed god cannot change that truth. And I was a warrior, and in a world at war the warrior must be cruel. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 1449611 | Be mad enough, his father once said, and they will either lock you away or make you a saint. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 155547e | When a man cannot fight he should curse. The gods like to feel needed. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| e724cc7 | How does a lawyer lie?" "With passion, Mr. Starbuck, and with a self-inflicted belief, albeit temporary, that the facts he is reciting are the very stuff of God's own truth." | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 9520824 | When a man must choose between nothing and everything he has small choice. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| deae62e | 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! | hope jews miracle mystery priest | Bernard Cornwell | |
| e1776fd | Many men do not beat their wives, even though the law allows it and the church encourages it, but a man gains no reputation by beating a weaker person. AEthelred had beaten AEthelflaed, but he was a weak man, and it takes a weak man to prove his strength by striking a woman. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| cfba936 | The fear came then. The shield wall is a terrible place. It is where a warrior makes his reputation, and reputation is dear to us. Reputation is honour, but to gain that honour a man must stand in the shield wall where death runs rampant. I had been in the shield wall at Cynuit and I knew the smell of death, the stink of it, the uncertainty of survival, the horror of the axes and swords and spears, and I feared it. And it was coming. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| aa343d0 | I was doing everything wrong. I was confused. Confusion is inevitable in battle, but indecision is unforgivable, and I had hesitated to make any decision and then made all the wrong ones. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 01b797f | We live by oaths and we can die by them. To give an oath is to harness a life to a promise, and to break an oath is to tempt the punishment of the gods. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 99bf350 | O orgulho faz o homem, impulsiona-o, e a parede de escudos ao redor de sua reputacao, e os dinamarqueses entendiam isso. Os homens morrem, diziam eles, mas a reputacao nao. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| a05325b | You never, ever, tell others of your crimes, not unless they are so big as to be incapable of concealment, and then you describe them as policy or statecraft. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| c87cff6 | That man is my Arthur, a great warlord and a hero who fought against impossible odds to such effect that even fifteen hundred years later his enemies love and revere his memory. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 2f0d294 | If an oath is a mistake then you are still obligated because you are sworn to it. | Bernard Cornwell | ||
| 71ecc01 | To transform home is to transform the world. | transformation | Diana Butler Bass | |
| 7e0a3f6 | Lillian comes out of the kitchen carrying an artefact, the blue metal tin marked Danish Butter Cookies that if I didn't know better I would swear had been in the family for generations - when the Jews left Egypt, they took with them the tins of Danish Butter Cookies. And tins, which as best as I could tell never included Danish Butter Cookies, traveled from house to house, but always, always found their way back to Lillian. | A.M. Homes | ||
| 5edce37 | Saying good-bye to Ben is Sarina's least favorite activity. So sad the number of times she's had to do it. Ball games, recitals, the homes of friends, rented shore houses, through car windows after dropping off some forgotten camera to Annie. Goodbye. See you later. Nice seeing you. She has mastered it: A dismissive peck on the cheek. A hug like an afterthought. Telling herself, Do not watch him walk away. Watching him walk away. Watching h.. | Marie-Helene Bertino | ||
| 3dd4396 | Curiously enough, though, it was Jeanette who came home one day with a C on a test. Prior to that, B was the lowest grade any of us had gotten, and even a B caused Mommy to shake her head and ask, 'Did anyone in the class get an A? Then you can get an A, too. You just have to study harder.' But this time she looked at the C on Jeanette's paper and said nothing. Wasn't she going to lay into Jeanette? Was Doc so special that she could get awa.. | Yvonne S. Thornton | ||
| 3052528 | The man with the dark hair sighs, and explains that his friend won't be coming back, and thus she won't be paid for her time, or for her trouble. And then, seeing the hurt in her eyes, and taking pity on her, he examines the golden threads in his mind, watches the matrix, follows the money until he spots a node, and tells her that if she's outside Treasure Island at 6:00 A.M., thirty minutes after she gets off work, she'll meet an oncologis.. | Neil Gaiman | ||
| 9c4a0d1 | At only ten a.m., Edgar found himself already eyeing the Doritos on the counter. One thing he hadn't anticipated about the 'home office' was Snack Syndrome; lately his mental energies divided evenly between his new calling (worrying about money, which substituted neatly for earning it) and not stuffing his face. | snacking | Lionel Shriver | |
| 7824a0b | Today's the day. The clock is ticking. I have been summoned to speak. I go before the committee with a chance to exonerate myself, to extricate, or at least explain the debacle that has become my life. A statement, a simple speech, a song and dance that will set them straight, an incandescent incantation, a charming presentation, a shoe of sorts, the show of shows, it's the only chance I've got. My appeal must be appealing, not entirely re.. | A.M. Homes | ||
| d89798d | The criminal element is contained - held under lock and key - and still it happens. How could it go one without me (us) - is that too narcissistic a mind? What I'm getting at is that, with so many of us locked up, you'd think it would stop. That it continues means that it is you and not me. Tell me about your day, your routine, and what you did at the drugstore when the dumb little girl charged you five cents instead of five dollars. Did yo.. | A.M. Homes | ||
| e3fb97a | I knew how I sounded - slow and oafish, like the cousin who gets ditched and goes on playing alone, as if he'd planned it that way. I couldn't quite tell her about the daily beauty, how I didn't tire of seeing 6 a.m. light on the telephone wires. When I was younger, I'd expected to grow out of the gap between the self I knew and what I heard myself say. I'd expected to feel more like one single person. | Michael Cunningham | ||
| 8f84901 | Mais tu crois que c'est quoi, une famille ! Sinon des gens dont on ne se remet pas ? | Benjamin Kunkel | ||
| 6e877e9 | There is no worse preparation for adulthood than having been a child. | Benjamin Kunkel | ||
| 7265955 | there is a whole hell of a lot of knowledge about the (expletive removed) human condition that we are not ready for. | Norah Vincent | ||
| 1ba2c9c | Ditto for the stereotype about men monopolizing conversations. Like Sasha, many of my dates--even the more passive ones--did most of the talking. I listened to them talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with, men they had divorced, roommates and coworkers they hated, childhoods they were loath to remember, yet somehow found the energy to recount ad nauseam. .. | Norah Vincent | ||
| c04d379 | I was never mean to him, but I participated heartily when the guys teased him. | Norah Vincent | ||
| 880dc34 | Most creative scientists, even the most prolific and versatile, produce one theory per subject. When that theory has run its course they move on to another topic, or stop inventing. Maxwell was unique in the way he could return to a topic and imbue it with new life by taking an entirely fresh approach. | Basil Mahon | ||
| 2e3ef01 | One of the things Maxwell learned from his reading was the fallibility of men's efforts to understand the world. All of the great scientists had made mistakes. He was acutely aware of his own tendency to make errors in calculation. | Basil Mahon | ||
| 1637f50 | For some reason his parents had a low opinion of his common sense. | Elizabeth Peters | ||
| 0919fa4 | Either the War Office had recruited Ramses - in which case I would have General Spencer's head on a platter - or Ramses had come across something that, in his opinion, merited investigation.... I am never guilty of idle speculation, so I kept an open mind on that. Except that once I caught up with him, I would have Ramses' head on another platter. | ramses | Elizabeth Peters | |
| 44bd74b | Why is a man with a knife after your blood? Who sent him? I would like to write the fellow a letter of thanks! | humor sarcasm | Elizabeth Peters | |
| 52b0661 | The roar of an angry crowd is one of the most terrifying sounds in the world. | Elizabeth Peters | ||
| 548e85b | They will have difficulties to overcome,' I admitted. 'Including the differences in their religions. However, marriage is always a chancy business, Katherine. I have known individuals who appeared perfectly suited, by family background, religion, and nationality, who were thoroughly miserable.' 'So you believe in taking the chance?' 'Certainly. What is life without some risk? | risk | Elizabeth Peters | |
| 63ad7c7 | Speculation,' I retorted, 'is never a waste of time. It clears away the deadwood in the thickets of deduction. | speculation | Elizabeth Peters |