Ellis Peters Quotes

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

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

First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs.

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.

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

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

song of elli (old age) "What is plucked will grow again, What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain What is gone is gone... What is sea-born dies on land, Soft is trod upon. What is given burns the hand - What is gone is gone... Here is there, and high is low; All may be undone. What is true, no two men know - What is gone is gone... Who has choices need not choose. We must, who have none. We can love but what we lose - What is gone is gone.

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.

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment!

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.

I do believe I begin to grasp the nature of miracles! For would it be a miracle, if there was any reason for it? Miracles have nothing to do with reason. Miracles contradict reason, they strike clean across mere human deserts, and deliver and save where they will. If they made sense, they would not be miracles.

If ever you do go back, what is it you want of Evesham?" "Do I know? [...] The silence, it might be ... or the stillness. To have no more running to do ... to have arrived, and have no more need to run. The appetite changes. Now I think it would be a beautiful thing to be still.

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

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

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

They sell courage of a sort in the taverns. And another sort, though not for sale, a man can find in the confessional. Try the alehouses and the churches, Hugh. In either a man can be quiet and think.

In every decision there must be some regrets.

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.

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.

I value devotion and fidelity, and doubt if it matters whether the object falls short. What you do and what you are is what matters. Your loyalty is as sacred as mine.

Perhaps thought really is prayer.

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

Downstairs Peter Beste-Chetwynde mixed himself another brandy and soda and turned a page in Havelock Ellis, which, next to The Wind in the Willows, was his favourite book.

What are wits for unless a man uses them?

Nothing learned is ever quite wasted.

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

In happiness or unhappiness, living is a duty, and must be done thoroughly.

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

So, wonder! I also wonder about you," said Cadfael mildly. "Do you know any human creatures who are not strangers, one to another?

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.

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

Every Spring is the only Spring, a perpetual astonishment. It bursts upon a man every year, thought Cadfael, contemplating it with delight in spite of all anxieties, as though it had never happened before, but had just been shown by God how to do it, and tried, and found the impossible possible.

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.

Say your prayers, think quietly what you should do, do it, and sleep. There is no man living, neither king nor emperor, can do more or better, or trust in a better harvest.

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

When I want to hear my echo,” said Brother Cadfael, “I will at least speak first.

The grace of God is not endangered by the follies or the wickedness of men.

Now have ado with a man!

Where there is no certainty the mind must turn to the light and not the shadow.

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.

The best way to get the sweet out of children and escape the bitter is to have them by proxy.

Cadfael hastened towards his workshop with a lightened heart, having shifted his worries to broader shoulders,

Never let it shake your faith that there is a balance hereafter. What you see is only a broken piece from a perfect whole.

There is no profit in ifs. We go on from where we stand, we answer for our own evil, and leave to God our good.

I think there are some who live on a knife-edge in the soul, and at times are driven to hurl themselves into the air, at the mercy of heaven or he'll which way to fall.

Official justice does not dig deep, but regards what comes readily to the surface, and draws conclusions accordingly.

It is a time for quietness and prayer. Death is present with us every day of our lives, it behooves us to take note of its nearness, not as a threat, but as our common experience on the way to grace. There is no more to be said. It is better to accept the will of God, and be silent.

Thank God I didn’t make the mistake of suggesting it to him, thought Cadfael devoutly. There’s nothing the young hate and resent so much as to be urged to a good act, when they’ve already made the virtuous resolve on their own account.

... there are as holy persons outside orders as ever there are in, and not to trifle with truth, as good men out of the Christian church as most I've met within it. In the Holy Land I've known Saracens I’d trust before the common run of the crusaders, men honourable, generous and courteous, who would have scorned to haggle and jostle for place and trade as some of our allies did. Meet every man as you find him, for we’re all made the same under habit or robe or rags. Some better made than others, and some better cared for, but on the same pattern all.

It was a matter of principle, or perhaps of honour, with Brother Cadfael, when a door opened before him suddenly and unexpectedly, to accept the offer and walk through it. He did so with even more alacrity if the door opened on a prospect of Wales; it might even be said that he broke into a trot, in case the door slammed again on that enchanting view.

... What is done matters, but what is yet to do matters far more.

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

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

I have been about the world long enough to know that God’s plans for us, however infallibly good, may not take the form that we expect and demand.

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.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of their affection, in the teeth of danger and despair love is entitled to speak its mind, and all others should be blind and deaf.

The lodging arrangements had certainly been inspired, though whether by an angel or an imp remained to be seen.

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

And who knows, thought Cadfael, which is in the right, the young man who sees the best in all, and trusts all, or the old one who suspects all until he has probed them through and through? The one may stumble into a snare now and then, but at least enjoy sunshine along the way, between falls. The other may never miss his footing, but seldom experience joy. Better find a way somewhere between!

When a dutiful brother came to relieve him, he went to his bed, and slept as soon as he lay down. He had the gift. There was no profit in laying awake fretting for what would, in any case, have to be faced on awaking, and he had long ago sloughed off the unprofitable. It took too much out of a man, of what would be needed hereafter.

Even the very system of bishoprics galled the devout adherents of the old, saintly Celtic church, that had no worldly trappings, courted no thrones, but rather withdrew from the world into the blessed solitude of thought and prayer.

One man alone can give up and subside into the cold and die, far more easily than two together, who will both brace and provoke each other, wrangle and support, give each other warmth and challenge each other's endurance. (The Virgin in the Ice, p. 87 of 200)

Even grief has its arrogance.” “Then you have learned, my son, that vengeance belongs only to God?” “More than that, Father,” said Luc. “I have learned that in God’s hands vengeance is safe. However long delayed, however strangely manifested, the reckoning is sure.

The ugliness that man can do to man might cast a shadow between you and the certainty of the justice and mercy God can do to him hereafter. It takes half a lifetime to reach the spot where eternity is always visible, and the crude injustice of the hour shrivels out of sight.

Child, [death] is with us always,” said Cadfael, patient beside him. “Last summer ninety-five men died here in the town, none of whom had done murder. For choosing the wrong side, they died. It falls upon blameless women in war, even in peace at the hands of evil men. It falls upon children who never did harm to any, upon old men, who in their lives have done good to many, and yet are brutally and senselessly slain. Never let it shake your faith that there is a balance hereafter. What you see is only a broken piece from a perfect whole.” “Such justice as we see is also but a broken shred. But it is our duty to preserve what we may, and fit together such fragments as we find, and take the rest on trust.

Life is not about receiving. It is about giving, knowing that someone might learn, understand or grow that little bit from the experience

Peter is suffering from an attack of nostalgia, she knows the symptoms. She mustn't join in otherwise she'll be swept away too, drowning in a quicksand of the past.

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

Men drunk with ambition and power do not ground their weapons, nor stop to recognise the fellow-humanity of those they are about to slay.

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.

What you do and what you are is what matters.

Cleverness and wisdom are not inevitable yoke-fellows.

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

In such dreadful times as these no one can do more than choose his own road according to his conscience, and bear the consequences of his choice, whatever they may be.

Then sleep easy," said Cadfael, "for God is awake.

The river was gilded in every ripple with capricious, scintillating light.

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.

So it always is, he thought, to relieve another you must burden yourself.

God disposes all. From the highest to the lowest extreme of a man’s scope, wherever justice and retribution can reach him, so can grace.

But it is our duty to preserve what we may, and fit together such fragments as we find, and take the rest on trust.

Beware how you pass judgment on your superiors,” he said mildly, “at least until you know how to put yourself in their place and see from their view.

He goes back to his childhood, as old men do.

Kings and princes of the church may find shepherds and serfs preferred before them,

for every untimely death, every man cut down in his vigour and strength without time for repentance and reparation, is one corpse too many.

Love shared is no sin.

There was so much to grieve over, and so much to celebrate, she did not know which to do first, and essayed both together, like April. But her age was April, and the hopeful sunshine won.

God does indeed forbid,” said Radulfus drily, “that we should make more of our virtues or our failings than is due. More than your due you shall not have of, neither praise nor blame. For

He said he had it against Helmut Schauffler that he was the living, walking, detestable proof of a war won at considerable personal cost by one set of men, and wantonly thrown away by others,

God, if they’d only break out and rebel properly for once!’ he said to Ellis before starting. ‘But it’ll be a bloody washout as usual. Always the same story with these rebellions—peter out almost before they’ve begun. Would you believe it, I’ve never fired my gun at a fellow yet, not even a dacoit. Eleven years of it, not counting the War, and never killed a man. Depressing.’ ‘Oh,

You cannot be of high Norman blood, and not excel! Brother Cadfael felt for any such victims as found themselves in this trap, coming as he did, of antique Welsh stock without superhuman pretensions.

But there comes a time when the old grow very tired, and the load of leadership unjustly heavy to bear. And perhaps—perhaps!—Heribert would not be quite so sad as even he now supposed, if the load should be lifted from him.

But no hero can stand before her, no god can wrestle her down, no magic can keep her out--or in, for she's no prisoner of ours. Even while we exhibit her here, she is walking among you, touching and taking. For Elli is Old Age.

It may be that God is reminding me that I am approaching my November. Well, why regret it? November has beauty, has seen the harvest into the barns, even laid by next year's seed. No need to fret about not being allowed to stay and sow it, someone else will do that. So go contentedly into the earth with the moist, gentle, skeletal leaves, worn to cobweb fragility, like the skins of very old men, that bruise and stain at the mere brushing of the breeze, and flower into brown blotches as the leaves into rotting gold. The colors of late autumn are the colors of the sunset: the farewell of the year and the farewell of the day. And of the life of man? Well, if it ends in a flourish of gold, that is no bad ending.

You have never sought to make light of your failings, I do not think you need fear our too harsh condemnation. You have been commonly your own sternest judge.” So he had, but that, well handled, can be one way of evading and forestalling the judgements of others.

You are looking at a murdered man, Father Prior. A man’s hand fitted that arrow, a man’s hand drew the bow, and for a man’s reason. There must have been others who had a grudge against Rhisiart, others whose plans he was obstructing, besides Saint Winifred. Why blame this killing on her?

My monk had to be a man of wide worldly experience and an inexhaustible fund of resigned tolerance for the human condition. His crusading and seafaring past, with all its enthusiasms and disillusionments, was referred to from the beginning. Only later did readers begin to wonder and ask about his former roving life, and how and why he became a monk. For reasons of continuity I did not wish to go back in time and write a book about his crusading days. Whatever else may be true of it, the entire sequence of novels proceeds steadily season by season, year by year, in a progressive tension which I did not want to break. But when I had the opportunity to cast a glance behind by way of a short story, to shed light on his vocation, I was glad to use it. So here he is, not a convert, for this is not a conversion. In an age of relatively uncomplicated faith, not yet obsessed and tormented by cantankerous schisms, sects and politicians, Cadfael has always been an unquestioning believer. What happens to him on the road to Woodstock is simply the acceptance of a revelation from within that the life he has lived to date, active, mobile and often violent, has reached its natural end, and he is confronted by a new need and a different challenge.

It was Duke (Atlantic; 1980), where Phil Collins’ presence became more apparent, and the music got more modern, the drum machine became more prevalent and the lyrics started getting less mystical and more specific (maybe because of Peter Gabriel’s departure), and complex, ambiguous studies of loss became, instead, smashing first-rate pop songs that I gratefully embraced.

On the fine, bright morning in early May when the whole sensational affair of the Gwytherin relics may properly be considered to have begun, Brother Cadfael had been up long before Prime, pricking out cabbage seedlings before the day was aired, and his thoughts were all on birth, growth and fertility, not at all on graves and reliquaries and violent deaths, whether of saints, sinners or ordinary decent, fallible men like himself.

He was a handsome, lusty, good-natured soul, who seemed to have blundered into this enclosed life by some incomprehensible error, and not yet to have realised that he had come to the wrong place. Brother Cadfael detected a lively sense of mischief the fellow to his own, but never yet given its head in a wider world, and confidently expected that some day this particular red-crested bird would certainly fly. Meantime, he got his entertainment wherever it offered, and found it sometimes in unexpected places.

Dear Kitty, Another birthday has gone by, so now I’m fifteen. I received quite a lot of presents. All five parts of Sprenger’s History of Art, a set of underwear, a handkerchief, two bottles of yoghurt, a pot of jam, a spiced gingerbread cake, and a book on botany from Mummy and Daddy, a double bracelet from Margot, a book from the Van Daans, sweet peas from Dussel, sweets and exercise books from Miep and Elli and, the high spot of all, the book Maria Theresa and three slices of full-cream cheese from Kraler. A lovely bunch of peonies from Peter, the poor boy took a lot of trouble to try and find something, but didn’t have any luck. There’s still excellent news of the invasion, in spite of the wretched weather, countless gales, heavy rains, and high seas. Yesterday Churchill, Smuts, Eisenhower, and Arnold visited French villages which have been conquered and liberated. The torpedo boat that Churchill was in shelled the coast. He appears, like so many men, not to know what fear is—makes me envious! It’s difficult for us to judge from our secret redoubt how people outside have reacted to the news. Undoubtedly people are pleased that the idle (?) English have rolled up their sleeves and are doing something at last. Any Dutch people who still look down on the English, scoff at England and her government of old gentlemen, call the English cowards, and yet hate the Germans deserve a good shaking. Perhaps it would put some sense into their woolly brains. I hadn’t had a period for over two months, but it finally started again on Saturday. Still, in spite of all the unpleasantness and bother, I’m glad it hasn’t failed me any longer. Yours, Anne