Quotes from Susan Cooper

At the centre of the Light there is a cold white flame

The Roman Englishman put his road from London to Bath, along valleys and around hills.

He was tall, and straight, with a lot of very thick, wild, white hair. In his grim brown face the nose curved fiercely, like a bent bow, and the eyes were deep-set and dark.

Minds hold more than they know.

He stared; there was something wrong. The great wooden doors had vanished. The grey wall stretched blank, its massive square stones quite featureless except for one round golden shield, alone, hanging high up and glinting dully in the light from the fire.

the house and everyone in it lay in a sleep that would not be broken.

Our wood is one which the Dark does not love. Rowan, Will, that's our tree. Mountain ash. There are qualities in rowan, as in no other wood on the earth, that we need.

Your father... doesn't work late for you to pinch his dinner.

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

water was the one element that could in some measure defy all magic; for moving water would tolerate no magic whether for evil or good, but would wash it away as if it had never been made.

including him in the words.

Minds hold more than they know," the tall man said.

I think something quite dreadful has been happening to criticism in the arts, particularly in America, during the last twenty years. In an age which is so much dominated by technological advance, the methods and even the jargon of science and engineering have mistakenly been adopted not only by fringe disciplines like psychology and social studies but by many arts scholars who should have known better. from In Defense of the Artist in Signposts to Criticism of Children's Literature (1983)

stolen property vanishes because somebody has taken it; that a murdered man dies because somebody has killed him.

Even in the darkest sea they knew they were observed and escorted all the way, by subjects of Tethys invisible even to an Old One's eye. News came to the Lady of the Sea long, long before anyone might approach. She had her own ways. Older than the land, older than the Old Ones, older than all men, she ruled her kingdom of waves as she had since the world began: alone, absolute.

For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it, Old One, do we not? For ever and ever . . . so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die. Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.

Oh honestly, Jane, Simon said. You can't find a treasure map and just say, 'Oh, how nice,' and put it back again.

Poets find truth by writing about what they love.

But once in a great while he remembered that he had felt pain, a terrible ache in his heart, and he swore he would never let himself feel love for a human again.

The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.

For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.

Once upon a time... a long time ago... things that happened once perhaps but have been talked about for so long that nobody really knows. And underneath all the bits that people have added the magic swords and lamps they're all about one thing - the good hero fighting the giant or the witch or the wicked uncle. Good against bad. Good against evil.

All life is theatre,' he said. 'We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves....

Tonight will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.