Quotes from Elizabeth Chadwick

Without the light the beauty remains hidden," Gofrid said. "But it is always there.

it was easier to be angry than to examine why

I have missed you beyond all reason, and that there is not a kissing bunch large enough in that hall to show you how much

All that remains is regret for what might have been. It is like standing in the ashes of a fire you once approached to warm your body a little, but which burned you to the bone instead. Now the ashes are cold, and sometimes you remember that even when your hand was in the flames, you still had a terrible need to thrust it deeper.

I've not come this far, fought this hard, loved this much to lose it all before the feast has even begun.

it would be all right. Not the same, not unchanged, but all right

The women were active, the men passive, and that made Richenza smile as she absorbed wisdom in that moment. Her grandmother had often been told she did not know her place, but truly she did.

know we argued—at times I hated him—but I loved him too, and he was always there. Now there is a hole and I cannot bear to look at it, yet neither can I bear to cover it with earth.

because there comes a time when there is nothing left but hope

If her own situation was a cup of poison, then she should drink from it herself and not expect Isabel to sip.

because there are no winners in this sorry state of affairs. We are all losers; we are all diminished.

I did everything I could." Tears scalded Alienor's eyes. "But it was not enough.

Was honour the same as conscience? If not, how did one choose between them? And was the choice, when made, bitter as gall?

We must all sleep alone in the tomb, my love, but in life we are joined as one flesh - as our children attest.

the world was a place where those who had power could do what they wanted and those without it were the victims. The world would try to make him its victim, so it was always best to strike first.

We are both what time has wrought of us

When you look at them as babies in the cradle, you never know what they are going to become, but you always hope for the best.

I know the difference between the confection of live as sung in a minstrel's tale and the sustaining bread of love in reality, he defended himself. Both are to be savoured in their own way.

As she prayed, she thought of Mary, holding her infant son in her lap, nurturing and sustaining him through his childhood, and then watching all that love and care dying tortured on the cross. But in dying, the Blessed Virgin's son had granted eternal life to all.

It came to him that life moved in circles like the ripples radiating from a stone cast into a pool. . . Now he was on the outer ring of the last ripple, journeying to fulfill the cycle. Or perhaps the cycle was already complete and he was about to cast another stone.

She crossed herself and gazed at the windows, shedding rainbow colours on the chapel's stone floor. The light from these windows shone just the same as it had when Harry was alive; that had not changed. And she must go on the same too, unchanging, for even when the sun did not shine the colours in the glass still existed.

Had she been male, she would have been granted a modicum of leeway, but as a woman she was damned as a whore

You are wise, Mama." "The price of experience," she said. "I wish I had been wiser when I was younger.

Within her the core of rebellion hardened. She would dress as she chose, because clothes and appearance were part of a woman's armor in this world whether Bernard of Clairvaux approved or not.