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We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.

Bernard Cornwell

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

Alone Company Happiness Leave Lost Miss Soul
Writing is a solitary occupation.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Occupation Solitary Writing
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
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Book Finish Months Research
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Children Christian Grow Up
Wyrd bith ful araed (Fate is inexorable).
BERNARD CORNWELL

Arared Fate Ful Inexorable
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
The existence of tricks does not imply the absence of magic.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Absence Imply Magic Trick
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

Love Men Thinking Wanted Wrenches
So far it’s 43 books in 25 years.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Book Far Years
Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation… Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Men Pride Reputation Wall
Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Easier Occupation
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
You know what circumcision is, Private?
BERNARD CORNWELL

Circumcision Knows Private
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

Achieve Funny Inspirational Ocean
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 CORNWELL

Book Clear Happily Married

We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.

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We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.

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Popular Authors

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