Ellis Peters Quotes

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.

The voices of cold reason were talking, as usual, to deaf ears.

Despair is deadly sin, but worse, it is mortal folly.

Truth can be costly, but in the end it never falls short of value for the price paid.

There is no one who cannot be hated, against whatever odds. Nor anyone who cannot be loved, against all reason.

The mountains of today are the molehills of tomorrow.

Nothing is more pleasing and engaging than the sense of having conferred benefits. Not even the gratification of receiving them.

I have always known that the best of the Saracens could out-Christian many of us Christians.

All the things of the wild have their proper uses. Only misuse makes them evil.

Too much trust is folly, in an imperfect world.

You cannot demand truth, and then select half and throw the inconvenient remainder away.

as roads go, the road home is as good as any.

Youth is no less vulnerable, by the very quality it has of making the heart ache that beholds and has lost it.

Truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light.

To have faith in Divine protection is good, but even beter if backed by the pratical assistance heaven has a right to expect from sensible mortals.

Death, after all, is the common expectation from birth. Neither heroes nor cowards can escape it.

Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.

Of all the reports that fly about the world, ill news is the surest of all to arrive!

You'll never get to be a saint if you deny the bit of the devil in you.

I go to Prague every year if I can, value my relationships there like gold, and feel myself in a sense Czech, with all their hopes and needs. They are a people I not only love, but admire.

Brother Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.

There is in the end no remedy but truth. It is the one course that cannot be evil.

Bitter though it may be to many, Cadfael concluded, there is no substitute for truth, in this or any case.

What are wits for unless a man uses them?

Only people who're positive enough to have friends have enemies. When you're as glum and morose as he was, people just give up and go away.

One century's saint is the next century's heretic ... and one century's heretic is the next century's saint. It is as well to think long and calmly before affixing either name to any man.

A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either.

Integrity expects integrity.

Here I begin to know that blessedness is what can be snatched out the passing day and put away to think of afterwards.

It takes a lot to wound a man without illusions.

the success of a holiday depends on what you find for yourself on the spot, not what you bring with you.

Even a saint may take pleasure, in retrospect, in having been once desired

Beauty is a perilous gift.

God, nevertheless, required a little help from men, and what he mostly got was hindrance.

Once, I remember, Father Abbot said that our purpose is justice, and with God lies the privilege of mercy. But even God, when he intends mercy, needs tools to his hand.

There never was, for all I could ever learn, a time when living was easy and peaceful.

The trouble with me, he thought unhappily, is that I have been about the world long enough to know that God's plans for us, however infallibly good, may not take the form we expect and demand.

Oh, sometimes I like to put the sand of doubt into the oyster of my faith." (Br. Cadfael)

Don't reach for the halo too soon. You have plenty of time to enjoy yourself, even a little maliciously sometimes, before you settle down to being a saint.

Innocence is an infinitely fragile thing and thought can sometimes injure, even destroy it. - Pg. 254

It's a kind of arrogance to be so certain you're past redemption.

Meet every man as you find him, for we're all made the same under habit, robe or rags. Some better made than others, and some better cared for, but on the same pattern, all.

Murder is murder, as much a curse to the slayer as to the slain, and cannot be a matter of indifference, whoever the dead may be.

But there are some born to do penance by nature. Maybe they lift the load for some of us who take it quite comfortably that we're humankind, and not angels.

If none of us ever fell short, or put a foot astray, everything would be good in this great world, but we stumble and fall, every one. We must deal with what we have." - Cadfael, Pg. 245-6

Well, you can fairly claim the day hasn't been wasted, ' owned Cadfael generously, 'if something's been learned.

He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands,

Questions are as supple as willow wands, it's easy to brush by them and slip them aside, and no one the worse for it.

When harried, we go as far as we dare, and with those we're sure of we dare go very far, knowing where forgiveness is certain.

Truth like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil however deeply sown will make its way to the light.