Susan Rowland > Susan's Quotes

“Trust the body of your enemy. The body does not lie. Most people,” she’d looked directly at Mary, “most people do not know how to make the body lie.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“Janet showed her teeth. “Time to get real, Sarah. No more human sacrifices, got it?”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“Don’t we know any. . .er. . .cheap lawyers?”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“What about that old coot?” Janet looked suspicious. Mr. Jeffreys was from the world of officialdom she despised.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“No sleeping in the places of death.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“Mary was under water. She’d been under water for a long time. Rhiannon was there. No, it was just her severed head talking. The murdered girl’s hair billowed out from under the torc.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“Sure didn’t expect to see that kind of assault, here in Oxford,” said another. “Seems like such a quiet town.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“The Torc— and the crone— go to the underworld via the sacred well and the river.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“Take it away,” she pointed at the green milk in a normal tone. “Anna and wife of Lir. Both must stay.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“I EAT THE DARK”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“Wife of Lir eat horse.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“So, Mr. Jeffreys,” she inquired of the human bluebottle, “you went to the gym?”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“This must be what dying is like. She tried wiggling a bony finger to attract Rhiannon. She wanted to ask her: is this what it was like?”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“She was oozing backwards into the tree. Her bones were going to mate with the grain of the wood. I am becoming part of the forest.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“There was no city, no London, just beacon fires on all three sacred mounds.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“[B]ehind the mother fighting for her son’s life was the priestess of the forest and the cup.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“Anna did say the wife of Lir had left her?” whispered Mary.
“Yes,” said Caroline. “She said, ‘for now.”
― Susan Rowland, The Sacred Well Murders

“There was no going back now. Rubber and metal could only take so much. The car could shatter and send its passengers into an elemental distillation of rock, flesh, blood, and ash. Alchemy, thought Mary, grimly. Too much bloody alchemy.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“The fire on the mountain.” That was Anna. “Alchemy,” she said. “I feel it singing in my bones.”
“Singing?” Mary would never understand Anna. The young woman turned away.
Wiseman’s reply was tinged with respect.
“That great pair of alchemists, Francis Ransome and Roberta Le More, believed the work they did affected the world’s spirit, the anima mundi. The Native Americans they met believed they too could and should interact with the Great Spirit. They lived with reverence for the land and all its peoples, the ancestors, the animals, the rocks, the trees, mountains.” 
Mary’s jaw dropped; Caroline glowed; Anna pretended not to listen. Wiseman nodded, then continued.
“You mean…?” began Mary.
“Yes, it could have been so different, a meeting of like-minded earth-based spiritualities. Just imagine, what could have been?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“The Alchemy Scroll works on the heart,” he said. “It plants words as I plant stones. The Scroll-maker is my brother. He paints the mysteries of God while I, guided by the Mother, built the new Hall as a door to heaven,” he said.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“You can’t set fires, Anna. Never again. Promise.”
[Anna] aimed her defiance at Mary.
“And you? What’s your reason to hate me?”
Caroline spoke quietly. “We nearly died — in the fire in those mountains and at the house when Ravi had a gun pointed at us.” Her eyes were full of tears. “The fire you set at The Old Hospital could have killed me as well as Janet and Agnes.”
Anna muttered into the syrupy dregs of her tea. “Fire, you’re firing me?”
Mary grimaced. There had been too much fire.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“If the Agency could become a container for something neither Anna nor Mary had known before: a family. Now, without Caroline depending on her, Anna was alone. It did not taste good. There were voices inside: I am risking everything; I could lose everything.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“She stabbed the earth with her big fork as if she could make Cookie Mac’s blood sprout from it.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Bring me Mother Julian’s Scroll within two weeks, or I’ll get that guttersnipe Leni prosecuted for attempted murder. She won’t survive long in prison.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Mary stared at the dreamlike happenings on the page. Human figures faced each other; the man’s head was a golden ball with rays reaching up to huge stars and out to the distant mountains; the woman’s silver head was sickle-shaped and surrounded by birds like eagles with white beaks. Some of the black letters glowed because they had tips like tiny flames.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Mary’s hands clenched. She’d been through fire, what with a murder, and white supremacists. And what about Caroline, who had gone undercover to rescue the Scroll’s Key Keeper? Where were the College’s thanks for that?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“I see the fat woman is right. I saw how you looked at him – Billy Dee. He’s your lover. Compared to my harmless affairs that man’s a monster.”
“I AM NOT FAT,” yelled Caroline. Something glittered in her eyes. Anna hissed, and Mary remembered that she carried a concealed knife.”
― Susan Rowland, The Swan Lake Murders