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.
BERNARD CORNWELLLooking 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.
More Bernard Cornwell Quotes
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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.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
You won’t regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.
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This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!
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?
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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 -
We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
You know what circumcision is, Private?
BERNARD CORNWELL -
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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I’ll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
Writing is a solitary occupation.
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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.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation.
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Every day is ordinary, until it isn’t.
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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 -
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 CORNWELL