Quotes from Judith Merkle Riley

A cat improves the garden wall in sunshine, and the hearth in foul weather.

No the cat we had to leave. It was not Protestant. But the dog, seeing no future for the Reformed Religion in France, was happy enough to go.

Oh, good Lord Jesus, I prayed, preserve me from this joking of God. Grief and trouble were all bad enough. But joking? It seemed altogether unfair, to me.

I am extremely humble," answered Brother Gregory loftily, gesturing to his clothing in turn. "In fact, if you measure humility by the greatness of the change from one's previous attire, I am possibly the most humble man in London. With my spiritual exercises in addition, I grow in Humility by leaps and bounds. Actually I expect to see God quite soon." Brother Gregory looked very self-satisfied.

Two halves of the same mind, working at full speed, in perfect coordination.

If there is a God, why would anyone of good sense want to deal with such a second-rate being as the Devil?

The acute flavoring that fear gives a dish is indescribable. Never in my life have I tasted with such precision the delicately mingled flavors of garlic and herbs, the subtle aromatic savor of wine. The brilliant, heightened flavor was unbelievably delicious.

I can write in Latin, French, and common English. I will not, however, write in German; it is a barbaric tongue that curdles the ink.

Today she was copying the Biblical passage that he had recited concerning the woman more valuable than rubies who serves her family day and night and never gets any rest.

I was content to dwell on the new idea that had come to me that all things and states were just varieties of light, and that in every form, light was the emanation and manifestation of God.

The autumn winds had blown away the dank gray clouds to show patches of blue mingled with the rosy pink of the dying day above the pointed slate roofs. The sort of day Marie-Angelique had liked. She always said weather that made your cheeks look pink could not be spoken ill of.

Most people don't even understand the present. Why should they understand glimpses of the future?

If I'm kept here much longer, I think I'll have to have another tantrum. They're certainly more satisfying than I ever suspected. I can see why a person would get in the habit of it.

If I had the pen of Moliere, I could make him comic. That is the role of art, is it not? To make monsters comic, so we can bear them, and our own cheap griefs into grand tragedy, so that others will weep with us.

I could feel something cold stalking my heart. It was fear. They all begin this way, I thought, with pledges of love.

How funny we are, I thought, the way we dance about each other, each afraid of being hurt by the other.

Tell me, Brother Gregory, in your opinion can a woman think as well as a man?" "Properly speaking," he said in a learned voice, "a woman cannot think at all, or at least, think as we men know it. But the imitative ability is very greatly developed in women, so that by copying men, some may attain the appearance of thought.

He didn't want to puff her up. Puffed-up women are one of the original sources of trouble in the world. If anyone knew that, it was he. He counted it as one of his duties to mankind to keep women from puffing themselves up, though it had been a most monumental duty in his own marriage. A job requiring a hero. It was one of those things that God, being male, questioned you about before you were let into heaven, and he was proud to say that he hadn't neglected it.

When faced with the illogical, one must expand the sphere of logic to include rules of logic for that which is not logic. This is the only possibility in a world that works according to the rules of rationality.

Oaths, in my opinion, infernal or not, ought to be short.

Why the Romans, Father?" I asked him one afternoon. "Because, my child, they teach us how to bear suffering in a world of injustice where all faith is dead," he answered.

There is nothing wrong with being a woman, and doing ordinary things. Sometimes small deeds can show big ideas.

After all, he meant well. Foreigners never seem to understand how little attraction an island of damp fogs, cut off from civilization, and a provincial little court has for us Parisians, who inhabit the most cultivated, powerful monarchy in the world.

That is God's way. He upsets everything and loves to annoy the vain most of all.