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There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead. I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war.

Bernard Cornwell

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Bernard Cornwell
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: February 23
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Someone
Trust
Town
Seems
Dead
Planning
Nothing
Learned
Smoke
Homestead
Mean
Peace
Towns
Betrays
World
Times
Seasons
Newly
Lives
Happenings
Betray
War
Happening
Shed
Means
Tears
Burned

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Television is a young person's medium.
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The existence of tricks does not imply the absence of magic.
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Madness ends sometimes. The Gods decree it, not man.
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I do understand that you can look into someone’s eyes,” I heard myself saying, “and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them. 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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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. 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.
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Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.
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Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Writing is a solitary occupation.
Bernard Cornwell
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At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.
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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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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.
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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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A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.
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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
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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.
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Book tours and research provide a lot of travel - too much, I sometimes think, but we do take vacations.
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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.
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