Colleen Mccullough Quotes

Never forget, Caelius, that a great man makes his luck. Luck is there for everyone to seize. Most of us miss our chances; we're blind to our luck. He never misses a chance because he's never blind to the opportunity of the moment.

There are no ambitions noble enough to justify breaking someone's heart.

When we press the thorn to our chest we know, we understand, and still we do it.

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.

Belief doesn't rest on proof or existence...it rests on faith...without faith there is nothing.

..the best is only bought at the cost of great pain...or so says the legend

If you love people, they kill you. If you need people, they kill you. They do I tell you!

What was sleep? A blessing, a respite from life, an echo of death, a demanding nuisance?

There is a legend about a bird which sings only once in it's life, more beautifully than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves it's nest, it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, it impales it's breast on the longest, sharpest thorn. But as it is dying, it rises above it's own agony to outsing the Lark and the Nightingale. The Thornbird pays it's life for that one song, and the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles, as it's best is brought only at the cost of great pain; Driven to the thorn with no knowledge of the dying to come. But when we press the thorn to our breast, we know, we understand.... and still, we do it." ~ Colleen McCullough

And gradually his memory slipped a little, as memories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing process within the mind which mends up in spite of our desperate determination never to forget.

Each of us has something within us which won't be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that's all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.

For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.

You still think love can save us. It’s more killing than hate. Hate is so clean, so simple. Like being in the ring. With hate, you just keep hitting. You hit until they stop hitting back. With love… They never stop.

Truly God was good, to make man so blind.

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

Love and hate are cruel, only liking is kind

...she looked like the sort of woman most men would want to get to know because they weren't sure what went on inside.

The best thing about being 40 is that you can appreciate 25-year-old men more.

How frightening, that one person could mean so much, so many things.

But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

Perfection in anything is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection.

Twelve thousand miles of it, to the other side of the world. And whether they came home again or not, they would belong neither here, nor there, for they would have lived on two continents and sampled two different ways of life.

There was some justice in his pain

Казваш, че ме обичаш, но нямаш представа какво е любов; само редиш думи, които си научил наизуст, защото ти се струва, че звучат добре

You just hang onto the thought that every dog has its day, even the bitches

I can’t share your love of God. But I do understand your need to give your life to him. Each of us has within us something that just won’t be denied. Something to which we are driven even though it makes us scream aloud to die.

We're working-class people, which means we don't get rich or have maids. Be content with what you are and what you have.

The law should not be a huge and weighty slab which falls upon a man and squashes him into a uniform shape, for men are not uniform.

Best of all she liked his eyes, such a translucent golden brown, and so laughing.

No man sees himself in a mirror as he really is, nor any woman.

Yet there's something ominous about turning sixty-five. Suddenly old age is not a phenomenon which will occur; it has occurred.

Oh, that feels good! I don't know who invented ties and then insisted a man was only properly dressed when he wore one, but if I ever meet him, I'll strangle him with his own invention

Всеки от нас носи в себе си нещо, от което не може да се отрече, дори то да ни кара да вием от болка и да призоваваме смъртта. Такива сме си и това е!

For the best is only brought at the cost of great pain. Or so says the legend.

We can know what we do wrong even before we do it, but self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.

It's not worth getting upset about, Mrs. Dominic. Down in the city they don't know how the other half lives, and they can afford the luxury of doting on their animals as if they were children. Out here it's different. You'll never see man, woman or child in need of help go ignored out here, yet in the city those same people who dote on their pets will completely ignore a cry of help from a human being.

Nothing is given without a disadvantage in it,

Maybe no great man is virtuous. Or good. Perhaps a man rich in those qualities by definition is barred from greatness.

Living’s for those of us who failed. Greedy God, gathering in the good ones, leaving the world to the rest of us, to rot.

И ето пак: посреща лошото с вдигната глава, поема новия удар- без вик, без сълзи, без протест. Само леко трепва, сякаш да намести товар, за да може по- добре да го носи. И затаи дъх, без дори да въздъхне. "- Колийн Маккълоу, Птиците умират сами

All that power held dormant, sleeping, only needing the detonation of a touch to trigger a chaos in which mind was subservient to passion, mind’s will extinguished in body’s will.

Age brought wisdom, but it also brought a genuine gratitude for the happiness of sharing life with someone as much liked as loved.

He owe his wife a debt he couldn't hope to pay with any coin save one: open the cage and let the bird fly.

Love isn't truly the body. Love is freedom to roam the heart and mind of the beloved.

No creo que el final sea muy feliz. Creo que obtendremos el resultado que se obtiene siempre con la imparcialidad. Nadie nos dará las gracias, y todos nos criticarán.

Às vezes a distância não conta, pensou, às vezes reduz-se ao silêncio breve que espaça as batidas de um coração.

Suddenly the thought that the end of her life was imminent shocked him; it was one thing to pity someone he didn't know, quite another to face the same dilemma with someone he knew intimately. That was the trouble with beds. They turned strangers into intimates more quickly than ten years of polite teas in parlours.

Something in her little soul was old enough and woman enough to feel the irresistible, stinging joy of being needed; she sat rocking his head back and forth, until his grief expended itself in emptiness.

But work used to be the lot of every man, and now it is rapidly becoming an aristocratic privilege. Men nowadays are more often paid not to work.

- Мислех, че съм успяла да те натикам в миша дупка завинаги. - Един свестен мъж не може да остане в миша дупка завинаги.

But not we men. We weren't fit to be told. For so you women think, and hug your mysteries, getting your backs on us for the slight God did in not creating you in His image.

Later on after the war was over the women were to find this constantly; the men who had actually been in the thick of battle never opened their mouths about it, refused to join the ex-soldiers’ clubs and leagues, wanted nothing to do with institutions perpetuating the memory of war.

For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain

Rain, rain, rain. Like a benediction from some vast inscrutable hand, long withheld, finally given. The blessed, wonderful rain. For rain meant grass, and grass was life.

- Питай Господ, Ралф. - отвърна Меги - Той знае всичко за болката. Нали той ни е създал такива - и нас, и целия свят. Значи той е създал и болката.

stayed as close to Theatre as she could, working Casualty or Men’s;

Что толку томиться по человеку, если он все равно твоим никогда не будет?

she sat rocking his head back and forth, back and forth, until his grief expended itself in emptiness.

orgy of sampling Europe’s charms, she never went back, and that was strange. In his experience people always

The feeling of coming home, when she didn’t want to come home any more than she wanted the liability of love.

Her tears were blinding her, the grief in her heart new, for until now she had never owned anything worth grieving for.

A man who has nothing to lose have everything to gain, and a man without feelings cannot hurt.

Duty, the most indecent of all obsessions, was only another name for love.

Tất nhiên, người ta cho rằng khán giả vẫn thấy rõ toàn cảnh của một vở diễn hơn là diễn viên

The lioness in Rome is quiet. I will not wake her to seek more money.

Anh luôn trả lời câu hỏi của em bằng một câu hỏi khác

Surprised, she realized that keeping physically busy is the most effective blockade against totally mental activity human beings can erect.

Họ không muốn có nhiều người vây quanh giữa lúc buồn khổ, họ thích đối diện một mình với nỗi thương đau.

Tại sao chúng ta lại đau xót? Con may mắn được sớm thoát khỏi cuộc sống mỏi mệt này. Chính cuộc sống này mới là địa ngục; một bản án nô lệ suốt đời ở trần thế. Chúng ta phải chịu đựng sự đau khổ trong địa ngục này khi chúng ta còn sống là như thế

Ir iš tiesų netrukus tekančio vandens šniokštimas pamažu nustelbė visur aplinkui šlamančius medžius, tyliai kalbančius vieni su kitais alsia, gailia šneka, kokia ramiomis dienomis prabyla eukaliptai.

The shock of having to pull herself up in the midst of a spontaneous reaction — I must remember to tell Dane about this, he’ll get such a kick out of it — that was what hurt the most. And because it kept on occurring so often, it prolonged the grief.

It’s Fortune,” he said. “I was given the hardest consulship a man has ever had. Just as I was given the hardest life a man has ever had. I’m not the kind to surrender, and I’m not the kind to care how I win. There are plenty of eggs in the cups and plenty of dolphins down. But the race won’t be over until I’m dead.

There's a story... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles.

Though they were very dissimilar in character, they also shared many tastes and appetites, and those they didn’t share they tolerated in each other with instinctive respect, as a necessary spice of difference. They knew each other very well indeed. Her natural tendency was to deplore human failings in others and ignore them in herself; his natural tendency was to understand and forgive human failings in others, and be merciless upon them in himself. She felt herself invincibly strong; he knew himself perilously weak.

You still think love can save us. It's more killing than hate. Hate is so clean, so simple. Like being in the ring. With hate, you just keep hitting back. You hit until they stop hitting back. With love... they never stop." ~ (Frank)

And gradually his memory slipped a little, as memories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing process within the mind which mends us in spite of our desperate determination never to forget.

Beware the Greeks when they bear gifts.

sold into an indentured servitude

You say you love me, but you have no idea what love is; you're just mouthing words you've memorized because you think they sound good!

father could hope for in a son.To have

We all have contempt for whatever there's too many of. Out here it's sheep, but in the city it's people.

¿Es que diréis acaso con toda sinceridad que preferís el gesto suicida de Leónidas a la brillante estrategia de Temístocles?

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.” —Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

— Съмнявах се в себе си, Рейн. Винаги съм се съмнявала. И може би винаги ще се съмнявам. — О, херцхен, надявам се, че няма да е така. За мен никога не ще има друга. Само ти. Цял свят го знае от години. Но обясненията в любов не значат нищо. Бих могъл да ти ги повтарям, да крещя дори, без да разсея ни най-малко съмненията ти. Затова не ти говорих за любовта си, Джъстийн; преживявах я. Как можеш да се съмняваш в чувствата на най-верния си поклонник?

Why shouldn't the living cords which lace our being together flick softly against a loved one in the very moment of their unraveling?...Sometimes, all the miles between are as nothing, sometimes, they are narrowed to the little silence between the beats of a heart.

There is something terribly reassuring about being in politics to enrich oneself. It’s normal. It’s human. It’s forgivable. It’s understandable. The ones to watch are the ones who are in politics to change the world. They do the real damage, the power-men and the altruists

Great literature was never intended to be either facsimile or echo of real life; it was meant to shut out real life for a while, to free the harried mind from mundane considerations, so that the mind could holiday amid glorious language and vivid word-pictures and inspiring or alluring ideas.

Why is it, Caesar, that there’s always a man like Lucius Metellus?” “If there were not, Antonius, this world might work better. Though if this world worked better, there’d be no place in it for men like me,” said Caesar.

Then God's a bigger poofter than Sweet Willie. "You might be right" said Justine. "He certainly isn't too fond of women, anyway. Second-class, that's us, way back in the Upper Circle. Front Stalls and the Mezzanine, strictly male.

Corunda Base Hospital itself continued to function on doctors, nurses, domestic staff, food preparers, and ancillary staff in the same old way, so that the patients lived (or died) in relative ignorance of the drama going on at an executive level. Indeed, it was a rare patient even knew that a hospital had executives.

Meggie dropped to her knees, scrambling frantically to collect the miniature clothes before more damage was done them, then she began picking among the grass blades where she thought the pearls might have fallen. Her tears were blinding her, the grief in her heart new, for until now she had never owned anything worth grieving for.

Os nossos filhos e os seus filhos e todas as gerações vindouras têm de ser fortes. Têm de ser educados de molde a terem orgulho dos seus próprios feitos e do seu próprio trabalho árduo; não devem ser educados para descansarem sobre os louros dos pais.

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend

La buena literatura nunca había tenido por objeto ser un ejemplo o eco de la vida real, sino que estaba hecha para abstraer al lector momentáneamente de la vida, liberando su mente de consideraciones para posibilitar su solaz con el glorioso lenguaje de vívidas composiciones de palabras en forma de ideas imaginarias o fantasiosas.

От свободно падащите черни къдрави коси и поразително сините очи до изящните ръце и крака отец Ралф беше действително съвършен. Не, изключено беше да не си дава сметка за това. И все пак държанието му й подсказваше, че той е над всички тези неща и че никога не е робувал и няма да робува на външността си. Той без угризение би я използвал, ако трябва, за да постигне целта си, но не като че ли жертва нещо скъпо, а по-скоро с презрение към хората, над които тази външност имаше влияние.

Kovėsi jis geriau negu kada nors gyvenime, regis, buvo pasiryžęs sutelkti visą didžiulę jį lydinčią šlovę į šią vienintelę dieną. Užuot pasidavęs įprastiniam siautuliui žudyti, stengėsi, kad sektųsi mirmidonams. Kovėsi nebe kirviu, o kalaviju ir visiškai tylomis, kaip karalius, kasmet atliekantis didįjį atnašavimą dievui. Ta mintis patraukė paskui save kitą, ir aš iš karto supratau, kokia permaina jame įvykusi. Visada jis būdavo tik karalaitis, niekada nebuvo karalius. O tą dieną jis buvo karalius.

There is something terribly reassuring about being in politics to enrich oneself. It’s normal. It’s human. It’s forgivable. It’s understandable. The ones to watch are the ones who are in politics to change the world. They do the real damage, the power-men and the altruists. It isn’t healthy to think about other people ahead of oneself. Other people are not as deserving. Did I tell you I was a Skeptic?

His sudden and utterly overwhelming panic was over almost before it began; but not quickly enough. In the midst of his brief yet total terror, the King of Pontus shat himself. It went everywhere, solid faeces mixed with what seemed an incredible amount of more liquid bowel contents, a stinking brown mess all over the gold-encrusted purple cloth of his cushion, trickling down the legs of his throne, running down his own legs into the manes of the golden lions upon the flaps of his boots, pooling and plopping on the deck around his feet when he jumped up. And there was nowhere to go! He could not conceal it from the amazed eyes of his attendants and officers, he could not conceal it from the sailors below amidships who had looked up instinctively to make sure their King was safe.

Luke’s not a bad man, or even an unlikable one,” she went on. “Just a man. You’re all the same, great big hairy moths bashing yourselves to pieces after a silly flame behind a glass so clear your eyes don’t see it. And if you do manage to blunder your way inside the glass to fly into the flame, you fall down burned and dead. While all the time out there in the cool night there’s food, and love, and baby moths to get. But do you see it, do you want it? No! It’s back after the flame again, beating yourselves senseless until you burn yourselves dead!

Oh, there had been divorced Presidents, even, late in the twentieth century, one who had survived a White House divorce to the extent of being re-elected. Of course old Gus Time hadn't made any mistake in the marital department. Sixty years of wedded bliss. The grin came and went. Old fox! They said when he was in his early twenties and so new in Washington he still smacked of the boondocks, he had cast his eyes around all the Washington wives: he picked Senator Black's wife Olive for her beauty, her brains, her organizational genius and her relish of public life, then simply stole her from the Senator. It worked, though she was thirteen years older than he. She was the greatest First Lady the country had ever known. But behind the scenes - Oh man, what a tartar! Not that he had ever heard old Gus complain. The public lion was perfectly content to be a private mouse. Gus do this, Gus don't do that - and he was so lost when she died that he abandoned Washington the moment her funeral was over, went to live in his home state of Iowa and died himself not two months later.