War Fiction Quotes

“Often the wise way is to seek the need, not the want. Want is often tainted by greed and is often wholly self-centred. Need by contrast is often the wish of the heart or soul for something better, something more whole.”
― Robert Reid, The Empress:

“As for the new world war that's waiting in the womb of time, a healthily developed foetus, who can say what will spark it, how destructive it will be? We've already played at this war in film and fiction, indicating that there's a part of us that desperately wants it. What nonsense writers and filmmakers talk when they say that their terrible visions are meant as a warning. [...] It's sheer wish fulfillment. War... is a culture pattern. It's a legitimate mode of cultural transmission....”
― Anthony Burgess, 1985

“Only the poor remained, those who had no money and nowhere else to go. Another governor, more merchants and soldiers would come to take the place of those that left. But the poor always stayed. They always stayed put. And they always stayed poor.”
― Charles Cordell, The Keys of Hell and Death

“The horse’s hooves crashed out on the stone floor, echoing in the arched entrance. Ahead, the nave stretched, vast, empty, bathed in colour; the winter sun streaming through stained glass between great arches. The horse snorted, its measured steps ringing out on the flagstones and tombs.”
― Charles Cordell, Desecration: Winchester 1642

“The gun stood on its platform, staring out over the breastwork of earth and timber, out across the steep valley to the hill beyond; a flat-topped hill, a great field of wheat laid over it, ripening and shimmering in the late afternoon sun; a cornfield filled with an army, a Cornish army, a superstitious, idolatrous army; an army of half-wild, barbarous heathens; a cornfield and an army to be cut down; a sacrifice to be reaped. 'For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
― Charles Cordell, The Keys of Hell and Death

“Grenville's line of Cornishmen swayed and lurched, a low growl running through the ranks like a storm far out at sea, the boulders grinding as the waves built. And then it burst, men yelling, shaking their weapons in the air, the pikes clashing, thumping the ground, shouting, demanding, exclaiming, 'Kernow vedn keskerras!' Cornwall will march!”
― Charles Cordell, The Keys of Hell and Death

“But God knew how he missed the sea. He missed it in the sun, in the wind and the dark. He even missed the hiss of rain sweeping across it. He missed the dancing sunlight, its ever-shifting tint and hue, scudding cloud and shadow – dappled, ruffled, heaving, waves ridden by white horses, spume streaked, fierce and shrieking. He missed its limitless, open call, its ungoverned, unchecked freedom, the pull of the horizon, an unknown shore, clarity and unfathomable deep. Most of all he missed the 'mordroz': the sound of the sea, its soothing whisper, its pounding drum, its howling fury. For the sea called to him still; it was in his blood, wanted him back, sucked at his soul, clawing, smothering, dragging him down, a restless lover, a shining temptress that could never be sated.”
― Charles Cordell, The Keys of Hell and Death

“ The Keys of Hell and Death by Charles Cordell - plunges the reader into the very trenches, hedgerows, ridges and streets of the war.”
― Miranda Malins

“I have been waiting for this second novel - The Keys of Hell and Death by Charles Cordell - and am not disappointed. Once again he evokes the experience of the Civil War soldier more vividly than ever before.”
― Ronald Hutton

“Shit on the tyranny of privilege and oppression that enclosed common land.”
― Charles Cordell, God's Vindictive Wrath

“As one, they yelled the name of a princess butchered, a child locked in a barren convent, the last drifting snow of Glyndŵr. ‘Gwenllian!”
― Charles Cordell, God's Vindictive Wrath

“Spike, rake, sponge, charge, wad, shot, wad – the gun crews worked like automatons. There was something extraordinary in the way that every man performed his motions as a part of the action. Every movement was synchronised with the next. They were a perfect machine – each one a piece of the mechanism, like the wheels of the watch in his pocket. He could think of no other example of men working together with such precision. This was man, industry and science in unison. Was this the way of the future? It was a wondrous and near-perfect thing. But it was a perfection bent on destruction.”
― Charles Cordell, God's Vindictive Wrath

“An exciting minute-by-minute story of the English Civil War … from the soldier’s point of view … the historical accuracy is fantastic … the storyline and writing style tremendously exciting." - God's Vindictive Wrath by Charles Cordell”
― Historical Novel Society

“THE FIGHTING IN THE PEACH ORCHARD AT GETTYSBURG

PROLOGUE
"The same young men who crowded each other as they faced the recruiters' tables now crowded each other as they died.”
― Charles Phillips, The Sharpshooter 1862-1864

“JAKE BAKER JOINING THE UNION ARMY IN NEW ORLEANS

"I'd prefer to be back in Texas, taking aim at the Rebs..., but I just can't do that," said Jake. ..."So, I'll just do what I can do, I guess."

"I suspect that goes for all of us," said the Colonel. "Maybe we should make that the unit's motto. 'The First Texas Cavalry of the United States of America: We'll just do what we can do, we guess.' It does have a ring to it, but I expect that we need somethin' a bit more inspirational and less true.”
― Charles Phillips, The Sharpshooter 1862-1864

“An exciting minute-by-minute story of the English Civil War … from the soldier’s point of view … the historical accuracy is fantastic … the storyline and writing style tremendously exciting.”
― Historical Novels Review

“Charles Cordell, a former soldier, writes with bravura confidence.”
― The Times

“Ralph’s horse shifted under him. It sensed the danger, the fear, the icy sweat that ran down his back. He laid a calming hand on the animal’s thick veined neck. Breda had carried him across the battlefield of Edgehill, got him safe away at Aylesbury, Brentford and Turnham. Could they make it back behind Winchester’s walls? The great charger stepped backward. Along their short line, other horses were backing up, tossing their heads, whinnying.
‘As you were!’ Smith held them in check. ‘On my order. Keep close. Together.’ He looked at them. Looked again at the enemy about them. ‘Now! Ride for the gate!”
― Charles Cordell, Desecration: Winchester 1642