You won’t regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.
BERNARD CORNWELLWe make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation.
More Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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I’m fortunate that the books sell, but even more fortunate to live in Chatham, to be very happily married and to have, on the whole, a fairly clear conscience.
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I do understand that you can look into someone’s eyes,” I heard myself saying, “and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them.
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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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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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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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Life is a jest of the Gods and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh… or else you’ll weep yourself to death.
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I’ll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.
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Looking back, of course, it was irresponsible, mad, forlorn, idiotic, but if you don’t take chances then you’ll never have a winning hand, and I’ve no regrets.
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The existence of tricks does not imply the absence of magic.
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Latin! The language of God! Or perhaps He speaks Hebrew? I suppose that’s more likely and it will make things rather awkward in heaven, won’t it? Will we all have to learn Hebrew?
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I know nothing about producing TV drama and any involvement on my part is liable to prove an obstacle to the producers, so I prefer to be a cheerleader and let them get on with it.
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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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We discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination. Love is a voyage too, a voyage with no destination except death, but a voyage of bliss.
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This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!
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You know what circumcision is, Private?
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But when you have order, you don’t need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected.
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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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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.
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Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war.
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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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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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I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the first book had not sold… doesn’t bear thinking about, but I suppose we’d have made it work somehow.
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Even the nailed god cannot change that truth. And I was a warrior, and in a world at war the warrior must be cruel.
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Television is a young person’s medium.
BERNARD CORNWELL