Death of Kings Quotes

“Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“We all suffer from dreams.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead. I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“...victory does not come to men who listen to their fears.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“- Senhor Uhtred! - Como sempre, Willibald reagiu à minha provocação. - Esse peixe - ele apontou o dedo trêmulo na direção dos ossos - foi um dos dois que Nosso Senhor usou para alimentar 5 mil pessoas!
- O outro devia ser um peixe incrivelmente grande - respondi. - O que era? Uma baleia?”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“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, Death of Kings

“No, fate is difficult. Is all ordained? Foreknowledge is not fate, and we may choose our paths, yet fate says we may not choose them. So if fate is real, do we have choice?”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“If you roll the dice often enough you always get the numbers you want. If I tell you the sun will shine tomorrow and that it will rain and there will be snow and that clouds will cover the sky and that wind will blow and that it will be a calm day and that thunder will deafen us, then one of those things will turn out to be true and you'll forget the rest because you want to believe that I really can tell the future.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“- Senhor Uhtred! - O padre Willibald veio correndo na minha direção. - O que está acontecendo? O que está acontecendo?
- Decidi começar uma guerra, padre - respondi cheio de animação. - É muito mais interessante que a paz.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“I had not liked him. I had struggled against him and for him, I had cursed him and thanked him, despised him and admired him. I hated his religion and its cold disapproving gaze, its malevolence that cloaked itself in pretended kindness, and its allegiance to a god who would drain the joy from the world by naming it sin, but Alfred’s religion had made him a good man and a good king. And Alfred’s joyless soul had proved a rock against which the Danes had broken themselves. Time and again they had attacked, and time and again Alfred had out-thought them, and Wessex grew ever stronger and richer and all that was because of Alfred. We think of kings as privileged men who rule over us and have the freedom to make, break and flaunt the law, but Alfred was never above the law he loved to make. He saw his life as a duty to his god and to the people of Wessex and I have never seen a better king, and I doubt my sons, grandsons and their children’s children will ever see a better one. I never liked him, but I have never stopped admiring him. He was my king and all that I now have I owe to him. The food that I eat, the hall where I live and the swords of my men, all started with Alfred, who hated me at times, loved me at times, and was generous with me. He was a gold-giver.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Some had hurled spears first. Those spears thumped into our shields, making them unwieldy, but it hardly mattered. The leading Danes tripped on the hidden timbers and the men behind pushed the falling men forward. I kicked one in the face, feeling my iron-reinforced boot crush bone. Danes were sprawling at our feet while others tried to get past their fallen comrades to reach our line, and we were killing. Two men succeeded in reaching us, despite the smoking barricade, and one of those two feel to Wasp-Sting coming up from beneath his shield-rim. He had been swinging an ax that the man behind me caught on his shield and the Dane was still holding the war ax's shaft as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I twisted the blade, ripping it upward, and as Cerdic, beside me, chopped his own ax down. The man with the crushed face was holding my ankle and I stabbed at him as the blood spray from Cerdic's ax blinded me. The whimpering man at my feet tried to crawl away, but Finan stabbed his sword into his thigh, then stabbed again. A Dane had hooked up his ax over the top rim of my shield and hauled it down to expose my body to a spear-thrust, but the ax rolled off the circular shield and the spear was deflected upward and I slammed Wasp-Sting forward again, felt her bite, twisted her, and Finan was keening his mad Irish song as he added his own blade to the slaughter. “Keep the shields touching!” I shouted at my men.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Wyrd bið ful aræd.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead. I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war. Spring”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Together we would make reputation, we would have men in halls across Britain telling the story of our exploit. Or of our deaths. They were friends, they were oath-men, they were young, they were warriors, and with such men it might be possible to storm the gates of Asgard itself.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Doubt weakens the will.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Many folk are clever, lord Uhtred, but very few are wise.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“In other words,” she said tartly, “women are supposed to do all that a man can’t do. And right now it seems men can’t fight, so I’d better do that too.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“There is no cause so hopeless, no creed so mad, no idea so ludicrous that it will not attract some believers,”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“The crews of the Viking ships are Danish, Norse, Frisian, and Saxon.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“I don’t fight old men,” he said. That was strange. No one had ever called me old before. I remember laughing, but there was shock behind my laughter. Weeks before, talking with Æthelflaed, I had mocked her because she was staring at her face in a great silver platter. She was worried because she had lines about her eyes and she had responded to my mockery by thrusting the plate at me, and I had looked at my reflection and seen that my beard was gray. I remember staring at it as she laughed at me, and I did not feel old even though my wounded leg could be treacherously stiff. Was that how people saw me? As an old man? Yet I was forty-five years old that year, so yes, I was an old man.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Because I’m tired of Wessex,” I said, “tired of priests, tired of being told what your god’s will is, tired of being told that I’m a sinner, tired of your endless damned nonsense, tired of that nailed tyrant you call god who only wants us to be miserable. And I refused to give the oath because my ambition is to go back north, to Bebbanburg, and to kill the men who hold it, and I cannot do that if I am sworn to Edward and he wants something different of me.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“I hated his religion and its cold disapproving gaze, its malevolence that cloaked itself in pretended kindness, and its allegiance to a god who would drain the joy from the world by naming it sin,”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“But we do not choose our deaths. The Norns do that at the foot of Yggdrasil and I imagined one of those three Fates holding the shears above my thread. She was ready to cut, and all that mattered now was to keep tight hold of my sword so that the winged women would take me to Valhalla's feasting-hall.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Do you think,’ she asked, ‘that we’ll ever have peace?’ ‘No.’ ‘I dream of a day when we can live in a great hall, go hunting, listen to songs, walk by the river and never fear an enemy.’ ‘You and me?’ ‘Just you and me,’ she said. She turned her head so that her hair hid her eyes. ‘Just you and me.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“Omnes enim peccaverunt,”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“and told that if I disobeyed then the sorceress”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“The Christians tell us we move inexorably towards better times, towards their god’s kingdom on earth, but my gods only promise the chaos of the world’s ending, and a man only has to look around him to see that everything is crumbling, decaying, proof that the chaos is coming. We are not climbing Jacob’s ladder to some heavenly perfection, but stumbling downhill towards Ragnarok.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“They were Danes, which meant they were planning mischief.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“... victory does not come to men ho listen to their fears.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings

“-... it's a foolish king who doesn't listen to his advisers.
-It's a foolish king, who doesn't know which advisers to trust.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Death of Kings