Quotes from Jacqueline Winspear

No one who wants a peaceful, safe life needs a weapon. Only soldiers at war need guns, and we are not at war. -The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

What kind of a country are we livin' in, eh? Where there's people feelin' pain in their bellies where food should be, and widows left wantin'—and little children dyin' for need of the hospital.

Look at the world beyond your immediate emotion, the immediate fury of inequality. Choose your battles, Billy.

Children, Maisie believed, could often only see their world in black and white, never shades of gray—which meant the hard-found forgiveness that provides respite from the dark melancholy of blame might never lift from the soul of a wounded child.

Not you. Only Fräulein Donat.

Everything. But in a time of war "everything" seemed to take on a different hue, and keeping loved ones safe meant sacrifices had to be made. Men and women had died making that sacrifice in the hope that their children might live in a free world.

Every war is a war against the child. —Eglantyne Jebb, 1876–1928 Founder of Save the Children, 1919, Jebb drafted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1924

There was no indication either of complaints by the villagers or of the source of such events. Billy had commented on the fires, saying, "Perhaps it's all a coincidence, Miss," to which they had then said, in unison, "Coincidence is a messenger sent by truth.

Sometimes the worries of the world give one pause for thought, and one wonders—especially someone of my antiquity—why history is not a more efficient teacher.

What is certain, is that war will not leave us as it found us. —WOMAN AT HOME, February 1915

Truth walks towards us on the paths of our questions. Maurice's voice once again echoed in her mind. As soon as you think you have the answer, you have closed the path and may miss vital new information. Wait awhile in the stillness, and do not rush to conclusions, no matter how uncomfortable the unknowing.

Come, take what you will, be nourished and know that you can bear what might be on your horizon, the good and the ill." Now

Linni, you have as many answers as you need or are likely to get. Don't ask for more. I learned in the Great War that there are many battles to be fought, and one of the biggest is with the veils that come down around us—with all due respect to that American author, you know, Mr. Steinbeck, I call them the 'drapes of wrath.' They both hide the truth and shield us from the danger behind them.

He's what my old mum would call a bombastic little nit of a man.

It had always interested her, that physically gazing out at a landscape, even if that landscape offered a cluster of town buildings, could provide a broader view of the possibilities inspired by a question. She did the same thing herself, when something troubled her.

You're in pain, Mr. Miller—it has to come out somewhere. I've found that people in distress, either emotional or physical, often cannot help themselves—as if that which hurts has to be exorcised, and inflicting some sort of harm on another provides an immediate if temporary relief.

Sometimes you can't slay those dragons; they can't be done away with, just like that." She snapped the fingers of her free hand. "You have to know how not to disturb them, how to mollify them if they become roused, and, above all, you have to come to respect them.

The wounds of the past could always be camouflaged. Erasing them to extinguish all trace was the greater challenge.

Thus he always wrote using a pencil with a long, sharp but soft lead, so he couldn't here his words as they formed on the page.

They say the face tells all there is to know about a life, but I personally believe much can be deduced from the hands. There are lines and scars, bumps and calluses; indeed, the hands are both the sketch and the final work of art.

it began as springs arising from an aquifer at Thames Head in the Cotswolds, and it was only when the German George I—the first Hanoverian monarch in Britain—acceded to the throne and could not pronounce "th" that the name of the river might as well have been spelled "Tems." She remembered asking about it when she visited London as a child, and her English grandmother informed her, "What the king says is what is right. And he said 'Tems.

Fear, she thought, had a viscous quality to it, to the extent that you could even feel it in your feet as you were running to the shelter; a burden slowing you down, despite the fact that you were moving as fast as your legs could carry you.

she would have been disappointed if he had not demonstrated such idealism, for he was yet to reach twenty-one; youth without optimism, without a strong sense of the possible, would represent a very sad state of affairs.

When you told me about the different subjects--psychology, ethics, philosophy, logic--that's what I most wanted to study. . . It's not so--well--definite, is it? Sometimes it's like a maze, with no answers, only more questions.