Best Sergeant Major Quotes & Sayings

The mace prodded
Will in the back again. That little habit was starting to annoy him and he was tempted to take the weapon from the sergeant major and do a little prodding of his own. — John Flanagan

Eva knows I'm terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she's lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn't tell a C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man - his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music - but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance "beauty," yet here she is, in these soundproof chambers of my heart. — David Mitchell

Is it going to hurt?"
"You bet."
Sergeant Major had a lousy bedside manner. — Ilona Andrews

There is nothing wrong with feeling cold in Alaska at -70 degrees. It's when you feel nothing at all that it times to panic — Sergeant Major

You know, I was a regular on the Friday afternoon drill squad. Um, which ... The year after I left school, I went back and thanked the sergeant major because I was so fit. — John Newcombe

Sergeant Major," Arjun said quietly, "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Yur snorted. "Is that a fancy way of saying it's above my pay grade, sir? — Neal Stephenson

Still, a part of me will never stop thinking of her as my sergeant. She's the toughest, most competent, and most evenhanded soldier I've known, and she runs her squad as a strict meritocracy. If only a tenth of the military consisted of people like Sergeant Fallon, we would have kicked the SRA off of every inhabited celestial body between Earth and Zeta Reticuli fifty years ago already. As things stand, we're weighed down by people like Major Unwerth, who coast through the system doing only the expected minimum. If a military is the reflection of the society it serves, it's amazing that the Commonwealth is still at the top of the food chain on Terra. Even with all the dead wood in our ranks, we have been able to hold the line against the SRA and the dozens of regional powers in the Middle East and the Pacific Rim that are short on resources and long on grievances with their neighbors. — Marko Kloos

The door opened. A guy came in. Busy, bustling, sixty-something, medium size, a gray suit, a tight waistband, a warm and friendly face. Pink and round. Lots of energy, and the start of a smile. A guy who got things done, with a lot of charm. Like a salesman. Something complicated. Like a financial instrument, or a Rolls-Royce automobile. "I'm sorry," the guy said. To Sinclair only. "I didn't know you had company." American. An old-time Yankee accent. No one spoke. Then Sinclair said, "Excuse me. Sergeant Frances Neagley and Major Jack Reacher, U.S. Army, meet Mr. Rob Bishop, CIA head of station at the Hamburg consulate." "I just did a drive-by," Bishop said. "On the parallel street. The kid's bedroom. The lamp has moved in the window. — Lee Child

It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate generals, and perhaps this is why history is so attractive to the more timid among us. We can recover self-confidence by snubbing the dead. — E. M. Forster

The sergeant major — Erich Maria Remarque

I grew up the daughter of a local vicar and the granddaughter of a regimental sergeant major. — Theresa May

His father was a sergeant major, his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon, and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army, whether he was rich or poor, educated or ignorant, talented or lucky. He didn't even have a part of the country to call home until he moved to California, which is about as specific as saying that you live in the Northern Hemisphere. In the end, it was probably his general disorientation that did them in. — Neal Stephenson

Motioned to the sergeant-major to turn the prisoner around to show his back. — Diana Gabaldon

He thought he suddenly understood. For the Lincon-shire sergeant-major the word Peace meant that a man could stand up on a hill. For him it meant someone to talk to. — Ford Madox Ford

Sergeant Major Reinhold von Rumpel is forty-one years old, not so old that he cannot be promoted. He has moist red lips; pale, almost translucent cheeks like fillets of raw sole; and an instinct for correctness that rarely fails him. He has a wife who suffers his absences without complaint, and who arranges porcelain kittens by color, lightest to darkest, on two different shelves in their drawing room in Stuttgart. He also has two daughters whom he has not seen in nine months. The eldest, Veronika, is deeply earnest. Her letters to him include phrases like sacred resolve, proud accomplishments, and unparalleled in history. — Anthony Doerr

My heroes are the non-commissioned officers. If I had another life that's what I'd be - a regimental sergeant major or a similar rank. That's where the spirit of the armed forces is. — Bob Ainsworth