Ellis Peters > Quotes

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“Bitter though it may be to many, Cadfael concluded, there is no substitute for truth, in this or any case.”
― Ellis Peters, The Raven in the Foregate

“Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.”
― Ellis Peters

“Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment!”
― Ellis Peters

“It's a kind of arrogance to be so certain you're past redemption.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“Truth can be costly, but in the end it never falls short of value for the price paid.”
― Ellis Peters

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, The Potter's Field

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, One Corpse Too Many

“Perhaps thought really is prayer.”
― Ellis Peters, One Corpse Too Many

“God, nevertheless, required a little help from men, and what he mostly got was hindrance.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“Now have ado with a man!”
― Ellis Peters, The Virgin in the Ice

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, Monk's-Hood

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, The Heretic's Apprentice

“The voices of cold reason were talking, as usual, to deaf ears.”
― Ellis Peters, Brother Cadfael's Penance

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, Brother Cadfael's Penance

“A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either.”
― Ellis Peters, Dead Man's Ransom

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, Dead Man's Ransom

“Brother Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.”
― Ellis Peters, A Rare Benedictine

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, A Rare Benedictine

“Oh, sometimes I like to put the sand of doubt into the oyster of my faith." (Br. Cadfael)”
― Ellis Peters, Leper of Saint Giles

“So, wonder! I also wonder about you," said Cadfael mildly. "Do you know any human creatures who are not strangers, one to another?”
― Ellis Peters, One Corpse Too Many

“I have always known that the best of the Saracens could out-Christian many of us Christians.”
― Ellis Peters, Leper of Saint Giles

“What are wits for unless a man uses them?”
― Ellis Peters, The Heretic's Apprentice

“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.”
― Ellis Peters, The Heretic's Apprentice

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

“All the things of the wild have their proper uses. Only misuse makes them evil.”
― Ellis Peters, One Corpse Too Many