“But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep y...”

“You will not say how you are haunted by the faces of the men you killed, how in their last gasp of life they sought your pity and you had none. You will not speak of the boys who died screaming for...”

“The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.”

“A sad, plangent music. In the British camp, Sharpe thought, they would be singing, but no one was singing here.”

“The shield wall reeks of shit, and all a man wants is to be home, to be anywhere but on this field that prepares for battle, but none of us will turn and run or else we will be despised for ever. W...”

“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 fall...”

“Is there shame in living off your fellow man or being unable to take care ofyourself? You bet. But a person whos willing to work and pay their own waycan at least take pride in that even if they ca...”

“A true encounter with the living God will break the spirit of religiosity, empty man of his pride and conform even the most vile and wicked into a living vessel for His glory.”

“He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a t...”