Bernard Cornwell

At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.

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.

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.