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But when you have order, you don’t need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected.

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

Amass Army Children Feasts Land
You won’t regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Men Pass Regret Women
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.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Hands Regret Winning
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
But when you have order, you don’t need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Dark Order Powerful
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
A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Battle Enemy Men Watching
So far it’s 43 books in 25 years.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Book Far Years
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
We don’t build,’ I said to my son, ‘we just destroy.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Build Destroy Son
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
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
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
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
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
Every day is ordinary, until it isn’t.
BERNARD CORNWELL

Day Every Ordinary Unit

But when you have order, you don’t need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected.

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But when you have order, you don’t need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected.

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Popular Authors

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