Quotes from Mary Stewart

Knowledge, I suppose, blocked the gates of vision.

Only now, his own barriers crumbling, did he realize how deep and absolute had been his need for her; and in the very moment of fullest realization she was here and she was his; his anchor, his still center, his searing flame, his peace....

Damn it, the tiger played velvet paws with me, didn't he?

I think the secret is that it belongs to all of us - to us of the West. We've learned to think in its terms, and to live in its laws. It's given us almost everything that our world has that is worthwhile. Truth, straight thinking, freedom, beauty. It's our second language, our second line of thought, our second country. We all have our own country -- and Greece.

the god does not speak to those who have no time to listen.

So here at last were the first lines of the story that was later to come clear, a story of spite and bigotry, too mean and petty to be called tragedy, but tragic for all that.

Everybody needs a–a centre. Somewhere to go out from and come back to. And I suppose as you get older you enjoy the coming back more than the going out.

Something was moving; there was a kind of breathing brightness in the air, the wind of God brushing by, invisible in sunlight.

Papá siempre ha dicho que una familia es una especie de seguro colectivo; que mientras uno vive y las cosas van bien nadie se preocupa, pero en cuanto sucede algo malo toda la compañía debe moverse para ayudar al que lo necesite.

The boredom and annoyance that shut down over it were humiliatingly plain to see. I could have slapped her for it.

I'm not a person whom the sight of olive oil repels, and I love Greek cooking. We had onion soup with grated cheese on top; then the souvlaka, which comes spiced with lemon and herbs, and flanked with chips and green beans in oil and a big dish of tomato salad. Then cheese, and halvas, which is a sort of loaf made of grated nuts and honey, and is delicious. And finally the wonderful grapes of Greece.

sat, chin on hand, thinking, my eyes on the bright distance. I

I lay wakeful, watching the empty dark, listening to the little wind which had sprung up throwing handfuls of rain against the walls of the tent

People are straightforward enough, on the whole, till one starts to look for crooked motives, and then, oh boy, how crooked can they be!

I had been so used to God's voice in the fire and stars that I had forgotten to listen for it in the counsels of men.

Have you ever thought, when something dreadful happens, "a moment ago things were not like this; let it be then, not now, anything but now"? And you try and try to remake then, but you know you can't. So you try to hold the moment quite still and not let it move on and show itself. It was like that.

to talk to Léon about it, I can see

A robin lighted on a blackthorn at my elbow, and began to sing. The sound came high and sweet and uncaring through all the noise of battle. To this day, whenever I think of the battle for Kaerconan, it brings to mind a robin's song, mingled with the croaking of the ravens.

Some three years after the end of the war my father died. He died as he had lived, quietly and with more thought for others than for himself.

I'd settle for what you had to give

the one who calls it by its name. To you

Yes, but the artist? said Nigel almost fiercely. He's different, you know he is. He's driven by some compulsion: if he can't do what he knows he has to do with his life he might as well be dead. He's got to break through the world's indifference, or else break himself against it. He can't help it.

I doubt if any son every knew more about his father and his father's father than I, with all you have told me; but telling is not the same. There was alot of knowing to make up.

Like the first breath of living wind to the sailor becalmed and starving, I felt hope stir.