logo

Quotes from Ellis Peters

When harried, we go as far as we dare, and with those we're sure of we dare go very far, knowing where forgiveness is certain.
~ Ellis Peters
Women want to own a man, and that grows irksome.
~ Ellis Peters
Love shared is no sin.
~ Ellis Peters
The river was gilded in every ripple with capricious, scintillating light.
~ Ellis Peters
Men drunk with ambition and power do not ground their weapons, nor stop to recognise the fellow-humanity of those they are about to slay.
~ Ellis Peters
The saint is a good Welshwoman, and knows her countrymen. We are not quick in respect to rank or riches, we do not doff and bow and scrape when any man flaunts himself before us. We are blunt and familiar even in praise. What we value we value in the heart, and
~ Ellis Peters
Then sleep easy, said Cadfael, for God is awake.
~ Ellis Peters
Time to talk over every day of the time they had been apart, time to reach the companionable silences when all that needed to be said was said. And all this the gift of Brother Mark. Wonderful what riches a man can bestow who by choice and vocation possesses nothing! The world is full of small, beneficent miracles.
~ Ellis Peters
Even a saint may take pleasure, in retrospect, in having been once desired
~ Ellis Peters
God does indeed forbid," said Radulfus drily, "that we should make more of our virtues or our failings than is due. More than your due you shall not have of, neither praise nor blame. For
~ Ellis Peters
Murder is murder,as much a curse to the slayer as to the slain, and cannot be a matter of indifference, whoever the dead may be.
~ Ellis Peters
Of Brother John he knew no particular evil, but the redness of his hair, the exuberance of his health and high spirits, the very way he put live blood back into old martyrdoms with his extravagant gusto in the reading, were all offensive in themselves, and jarred on the prior's aesthetic sensibilities.
~ Ellis Peters
You have not lived here among us. She did. You are English, she was Welsh, she knew us, and was never so moved against us that she withdrew or complained. We know she is there, no need to exclaim or make any great outcry. If we have needs, she knows it, and never asks that we should come with prayers and tears, knocking our knees on the ground before her. If she grudged a few brambles and weeds, she would have found a means to tell us. Us, not some distant Benedictine house in England!
~ Ellis Peters
Mark ran to the herbarium to collect the paste of mulberry leaves and the unguent of Our Lady's mantle, known specifics for burns
~ Ellis Peters
Great darkness and constant, feeble light, the slow flowing of time from far beyond his conception to far beyond his power to follow, the solitude about him and the troubled and peopled world within, all these settled into their perpetual pattern, a steady rhythm as perfect as sleep.
~ Ellis Peters
King Stephen would never be a threat to his cousin's life, however bitter their rivalry had been, but if once she was made captive, he would be forced to hold her in close ward for his crown's sake. Nor was she ever likely to relinquish her claim, even in prison, and agree to terms that would lightly release her. Friends and allies, thus parted might, in very truth, never see each other again.
~ Ellis Peters
And are you thinking, Hugh, what I am thinking?
~ Ellis Peters
there's starvation in the town, though I doubt if either empress or bishop is going short." He was a man who spoke his mind, and no great respecter of high personages. "A very different tale for the poor townsfolk! But it's biting even the garrison
~ Ellis Peters
Ermina—she must always have her own way.
~ Ellis Peters
She was not the audience to which he played, but she was the profound intelligence that heard him. She drew him in with her great bruised eyes, and his music she drank, and it was wine to her thirst.
~ Ellis Peters
Some who thus take fire burn to the day of their death, and set light to many others, leaving a trail of radiance to generations to come. Other fires sink for want of fuel, but do no harm to any. Time would discover what young Meriet's small, desperate flame portended.
~ Ellis Peters
trumpery. Knew
~ Ellis Peters
He said he had it against Helmut Schauffler that he was the living, walking, detestable proof of a war won at considerable personal cost by one set of men, and wantonly thrown away by others
~ Ellis Peters
the 34th, gently explaining that the doctrine of equal shares for all could not always be maintained, since the needs of one might exceed the needs
~ Ellis Peters