Research is a lifelong occupation so it’s hard to factor it in, but I reckon most books take 5 months from start to finish.
BERNARD CORNWELLEven the nailed god cannot change that truth. And I was a warrior, and in a world at war the warrior must be cruel.
More Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.
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What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.
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You’ll call me damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of Christian children. How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things.
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This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!
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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.
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Writing is a solitary occupation.
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Every day is ordinary, until it isn’t.
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If you understand everything,’ I said carefully, ‘then there’s no room left for magic. It’s only when you’re lost and frightened and in the dark that you call on the Gods, and they like us to call on them. It makes them feel powerful, and that’s why they like us to live in chaos.
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Then you start another book and suddenly the galley proofs of the last one come in and you have to wrench your attention away from what you’re writing and try to remember what you were thinking when you wrote the previous one.
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Because there could not be peace, not while two tribes shared one land. One tribe must win.
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So far it’s 43 books in 25 years.
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Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation… Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.
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And yes, there’s a simplicity to writing books because you’re not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee.
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Love is a dangerous thing. It comes in disguise to change our life… Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted.
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We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation.
BERNARD CORNWELL