Ellis Peters Quotes

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.

Life goes not in a straight line, lad, but in a circle. The first half we spend venturing as far as the world's end from home and kin and stillness, and the latter half brings us back, by roundabout ways but surely, to that state from which we set out.

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

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

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

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

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

The mountains of today are the molehills of tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

Every man has within him only one life and one nature ... It behooves a man to look within himself and turn to the best dedication possible those endowments he has from his Maker. You do no wrong in questioning what once you held to be right for you, if now it has come to seem wrong. Put away all thought of being bound. We do not want you bound. No one who is not free can give freely.

Too much trust is folly, in an imperfect world.

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

It takes a lot to wound a man without illusions.

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

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

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

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

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.

In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the price. You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple.

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

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.

Integrity expects integrity.