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.
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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Writing is a solitary occupation.
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Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.
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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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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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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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Wyrd bith ful araed (Fate is inexorable).
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A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.
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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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You know what circumcision is, Private?
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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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Television is a young person’s medium.
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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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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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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.
BERNARD CORNWELL