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.
BERNARD CORNWELLAnd 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.
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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Because there could not be peace, not while two tribes shared one land. One tribe must win. 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.
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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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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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So far it’s 43 books in 25 years.
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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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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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We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
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?
BERNARD CORNWELL -
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.
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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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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 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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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.
BERNARD CORNWELL