Quotes from Iain Pears

For, in his opinion, to study nature was a form of worship.

I learned that I' have to be detached if I was ever to achieve anything at all.

He (William Cort) had some desire to be successful, but it did not burn so strongly in him that he was prepared to overcome his character to achieve it.

She had lost herself in this old work, her personality dissolving into it, so that she had been set free. The immortality of the soul lies in its dissolution; this was the cryptic comment that so frustrated Olivier and which Julien had only ever grasped as evidence for the history of a particular school of thought. He had known all about its history, but Julia knew what it meant. He found the realization strangely reassuring.

Civilization depends on continually making the effort, of never giving in. It needs to be cared for by men of goodwill, protected from the dark.

Being by the sea is like a permanent baptism; the light and air hypnotizes, and your soul is washed by vastness.

Considering he was neither priest nor scholar, the young man gave sensible, thoughtful replies -- the more so, perhaps, for being untrained, for he had not learned what he should believe or should not believe. Present a statement to him in flagrant contradiction to all Christian doctrine and he could be persuaded to agree on its good sense, unless he remembered it was the sort of thing of which pyres are made for the incautious.

God forbid that I should ever suffer the shame of publishing a book for money, or of having one of my family so demean themselves. How can one tell who might read it? No worthy book has ever been written for gain, I think;

Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanished entirely.

When all this is over, people will try to blame the Germans alone, and the Germans will try to blame the Nazis alone, and the Nazis will try to blame Hitler alone. They will make him bear the sins of the world. But it's not true. You suspected what was happening, and so did I.

Caius was one of those who gloried in his ignorance, called his lack of letters purity, scorned any subtlety of thought or expression. A man for his time, indeed.

Do you wish to speak in Provençal, French, or Latin? They are all I can manage, I'm afraid. Any will do, the rabbi replied in Provençal. Splendid. Latin it is, said Pope Clement.

And a more foolish notion can scarcely be imagined, it being obvious that the reader is only informed of what the writer wishes him to know, and is thus seduced into believing almost anything.

For men are held above their fellows by the gossamer of reputation, which is so soft and fragile a breath can blow it away.

Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something. The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is more important than movement. That action is virtuous only if it reflects pure comprehension, and that virtue comes from the comprehension, not the action. Olivier frowned. So? Dear boy, I must tell you a secret. What? I do believe it is wrong.

Father is a school manqué ... He always wanted to write books. But he became rich instead, so is not allowed.

Who you are is less important than what you seem.

I went to the meeting with some trepidation for, although I might have met a wizard before, I had never encountered an Irishman.

It is cruel that we are granted the desire to know, but denied the time to do so properly. We all die frustrated; it is the greatest lesson we have to learn.

Besides, it was all very well to criticise the works of others, but in fact it was quite hard, he discovered, to tell a story.

The next day was a dream of such perfection that I have never approached the like again. It was, of course, all illusion, but I like to think of it still in isolation from what came after,as a moment of bliss, one of those days when on is no longer oneself, but becomes bigger, and better, able to overcome the normal preoccupations of life and breathe more freely.

Rosie digested the information, but not the cake. Her mother was strict about eating between meals. 'A fat girl will never find a good man, Rosie,' was her view, handed down to her by Great-aunt Jessie, a woman of many cliches.

The painter without the critic is nothing. The good critic can make the mediocre famous, the great obscure. His power is limitless; the artist is his servant, and one day will recognize the fact.

They talk, you know, the dead. Not in words, of course; I am not losing my sanity. They talk in the wind and the rain, in the way the light falls on ruined buildings and dilapidated stone walls.