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.
BERNARD CORNWELLIf 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.
More Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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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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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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A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.
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Television is a young person’s medium.
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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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You know what circumcision is, Private?
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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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This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!
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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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Because there could not be peace, not while two tribes shared one land. One tribe must win.
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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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So far it’s 43 books in 25 years.
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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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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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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.
BERNARD CORNWELL