The Winter King (The Warlord Chronicles, #1)

by Bernard Cornwell

evidence of an incurable stupidity,

Taxes, as I was to learn, were the best source of wealth for men who did not want to work,

You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you’ll just weep yourself to death.

Battle assaults the senses, and that assault ferments fear, and obedience is the narrow thread that leads out of fear’s chaos into survival.

‘That horrible man Bishop Sansum is trying to make us all Christians and I won’t put up with it! He wants us to feel guilty all the time and I keep telling him I’ve nothing to be guilty about, but the Christians are getting more powerful.

We

Once you write something down it becomes fixed. It becomes dogma. People can argue about it, they become authoritative, they refer to the texts, they produce new manuscripts, they argue more and soon they’re putting each other to death. If you never write anything down then no one knows exactly what you said so you can always change it.

cackling

It isn’t for us, Lord, to read the minds of Gods, just to live our fate fully.’

To ask another man’s blessing is simply to avoid taking the responsibility.

We Irish know one thing above all others: an enemy forgiven is an enemy who will have to be fought over and over again.

you can look into someone’s eyes,’ I heard myself saying, ‘and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. Know that their voice can make your heart miss a beat and that their company is all your happiness can ever desire and that their absence will leave your soul alone, bereft and lost.’

How much of our earth has been wet by blood because of jealousy!