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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.

Bernard Cornwell

Writing is a solitary occupation.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Occupation Solitary Writing
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

Fool Love Regret Savage Song Start
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

Book Firsts Sold Suppose Thinking
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Destination Love Lust Men Such Voyage
The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn life’s lessons.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Beget Children Lesson Mercy Son Tragically
Because there could not be peace, not while two tribes shared one land. One tribe must win.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Change Land War Winning
Book tours and research provide a lot of travel – too much, I sometimes think, but we do take vacations.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Book Thinking Travel Vacation
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Book Decision Team Writing
This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!
BERNARD CORNWELL

Blood Bone Land Our Strengthened
Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Easier Occupation
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Attention Book Proof Thinking Writing
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Friendship Kings Queens Writing
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 CORNWELL

Carefully Frightened God Lost Magic Room Understand
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Change Land Tribe War Winning
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Cheerleader Drama Obstacle Procedure
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 CORNWELL

Death Jest Justice Laughing Life

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bernard Cornwell Quotes