A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.
BERNARD CORNWELLYou’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.
More Bernard Cornwell Quotes
-
-
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 -
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 -
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 -
The existence of tricks does not imply the absence of magic.
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 -
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 -
We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
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 -
Writing is a solitary occupation.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL -
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 -
This is our land, mixed with our blood, strengthened with our bone. Ours!
BERNARD CORNWELL