A Morbid Taste for Bones Quotes

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

“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

“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

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

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

“When I want to hear my echo,” said Brother Cadfael, “I will at least speak first.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“Official justice does not dig deep, but regards what comes readily to the surface, and draws conclusions accordingly.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

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

“The best way to get the sweet out of children and escape the bitter is to have them by proxy.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

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

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

“The lodging arrangements had certainly been inspired, though whether by an angel or an imp remained to be seen.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

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

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

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

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

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

“She looked from his face into the face of the dead man. She knew he was dead. She also knew that the dead speak, often in thunder.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“The saint is a good Welshwoman, and knows her countrymen. We are not quick in respect to rank or riches, we do not doff and bow and scrape when any man flaunts himself before us. We are blunt and familiar even in praise. What we value we value in the heart, and”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“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”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

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

“Even a saint may take pleasure, in retrospect, in having been once desired”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“In otherworldly justice the body would clear him of the evil he had not committed”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“There’s a lot of merit in silence.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“There was a time when I’d hoped… But it would never have done. I was an old fool ever to think of it, and it’s better this way.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“On almost all of which counts he was in error, but since no one was ever likely to tell him so, there was no harm done.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“When you have done everything else, perfecting a conventual herb-garden is a fine and satisfying thing to do. He could not conceive of coming to this stasis having done nothing else whatever.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

“When you have done everything else, perfecting a conventual herb-garden is a fine and satisfying thing to do.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones

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

“make medicines against pain, the chief enemy of man. Pain, and the absence of sleep, which is the most beneficent remedy for pain.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones