Quotes from Susan Cooper

In the end, all it takes is one small action, by one person. One at a time.

The night became silver again; looking up, it was as if they saw the moon sailing through the clouds instead of the other way around; racing smoothly across the sky, passing puffs and wisps of cloud on either side, and yet never moving from its place.

Trance is fragile.

Go away, he said. Go away. I wish you had never come here. I wish I had never heard of the Light and the Dark, and your damned old Merriman and his rhymes. If I had your golden harp now I would throw it in the sea. I am not a part of your stupid quest anymore, I don't care what happens to it. And Cafall was never a part of it either, or a part of your pretty pattern. He was my dog, and I loved him more than anything in the world, and now he is dead. Go away .

Wish on a star, said a tiny voice in his head from some long-departed day of early childhood: Wish on a star--the cry of pleasure and faith as ancient as the eyes of man.

But a wild creature will always go back to the wild, in the end.

The wind on the headland whined softly round them, and although, as they watched, Great-Uncle Merry's expression did not change, they suddenly knew that some enormous emotion was flooding through him. Like an electric current it tingled the air, exciting and frightening at the same time; though they could not understand what it was.

Bran said, Why should some of the Riders of the Dark be dressed all in white and the rest all in black? Without colour.... Will said reflectively. I don't know. Maybe because the Dark can only reach people at extremes-- blinded by their own shining ideas, or locked up in the darkness of their own heads.

Expect nothing and fear nothing, here or anywhere. That's your first lesson.

The child I was is the only child I really know.' That's it. I can still feel what it was like to be that child of the 1940s from inside; I am still the same mixture of insecurity and determination, shyness and arrogance, curiosity and fear. I have the same talent she had; the same imagination. I write for her, for that child, and so it is true when I say I write for myself.

The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.

every man has a last choice after the first, a chance of forgiveness. It is not too late. Turn. Come to the Light.

Maybe because the Dark can only reach people at extremes; blinded by their own shining ideas, or locked up in the darkness of their own heads.

He was woken by music. It beckoned him, lilting and insistent; delicate music, played by delicate instruments that he could not identify, with one rippling, bell-like phrase running through it in a gold thread of delight. There was in this music so much of the deepest enchantment of all his dreams and imaginings that he woke smiling in pure happiness at the sound.

In the end, all it takes is one small action, by one person. One at a time.

It says, loving doesn't change just because someone isn't there, or because time gets in the way, or even death. It's always with you, keeping you safe, it won't ever leave you.

He was not for that moment a human being, but a frenzied creature possessed by rage, turned into an animal. All that could be seen in him was the urge to hurt, and it was, as it always will be, the most dreadful sight in the world.

The Herdsman passed, nodding, the bright star Arcturus at his knee; the Bull roared by, bearing the great sun Aldebaran and the small group of the Pleiades singing in small melodic voices, like no voices he had ever heard.

Little Hawk, it is not for us to tell how great and terrible things come about. Only the Great Spirit can see all.

I do not believe any power can possess the mind of a man or woman... I believe in God-given free will, you see. I think nothing is forced on us, except by other people like ourselves. I think our choices are our own.

The Walker is abroad," he said again. "And this night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.

He sat there all through a history lesson about the Roman Empire, which--having lived in the Roman Empire, for the four hundred years during which it had included the British Isles--he found inaccurate and boring.

Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvelous joy.

It's all right! Simon said hoarsely. Hastily he cleared his throat and put his shoulders back, though it was hard to recover dignity in pajamas.