Quotes by Ellis Peters

“I loved and hated India; the pressures of class division and riches and poverty there are devastating, but love predominates. I have two families and scattered friends there, mainly in Delhi, but south also, and wish I had the stamina to tackle it again. Maybe Ill make it some day yet, but it does take stamina.”

“It takes a lot to wound a man without illusions”

“Truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light.”

“I go to Prague every year if I can, value my relationships there like gold, and feel myself in a sense Czech, with all their hopes and needs. They are a people I not only love, but admire.”

“Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.”

“Death, after all, is the common expectation from birth. Neither heroes nor cowards can escape it.”

“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. Not here - not now.”

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

“Those who go forth to the battle never return without holes in their ranks, like gaping wounds. Pity of all pities that those who lead never learn, and the few wise men among those who follow never quite avail to teach. But faith given and allegiance pledged are stronger than fear ...”

“Nothing is more pleasing and engaging than the sense of having conferred benefits. Not even the gratification of receiving them.”

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

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

The trouble with me, he thought unhappily, is that I have been about the world long enough to know that Gods plans for us, however infallibly good, may not take the form we expect and demand.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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