WIST Quotations

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 2, A Morbid Taste for Bones, ch. 3 (1977)

Dave — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 23:55:16 +0000

“God resolves all given time,” said Cai philosophically and trudged away into darkness. And Cadfael returned along the path with the uncomfortable feeling that God, nevertheless, required a little help from men, and what he mostly got was hindrance.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 2, A Morbid Taste for Bones, ch. 6 (1977)

Dave — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 22:37:30 +0000

“Man,” said Cadfael earnestly, “there are as holy persons outside orders as ever there are in, and not to trifle with truth, as good men out of the Christian church as most I’ve met within it. In the Holy Land I’ve known Saracens I’d trust before the common run of the crusaders, men honourable, generous and courteous, who would have scorned to haggle and jostle for place and trade as some of our allies did. Meet every man as you find him, for we’re all made the same under habit or robe or rags. Some better made than others, and some better cared for, but on the same pattern all.”

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 2, A Morbid Taste for Bones, ch. 9 [Cadfael] (1977)

Dave — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 15:08:57 +0000

Both men and women partake of the same human nature, Huw. We both bleed when we’re wounded. That’s a poor, silly woman, true, but we can show plenty of poor, silly men. There are women as strong as any of us, and as able.

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 2, A Morbid Taste for Bones, ch. 9 [Cadfael] (1977)
(Source)

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 3, One Corpse Too Many, ch. 12 (1979)

Dave — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 21:37:54 +0000

The trouble with me, he thought unhappily, is that I have been about the world long enough to know that God’s plans for us, however infallibly good, may not take the form that we expect and demand.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 8, The Sanctuary Sparrow, ch. 5 (1983)

Dave — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 21:12:09 +0000

Fear for yourself crushes and compresses you from without, but fear for another is a monster, a ravenous rat gnawing within, eating out your heart.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 8, The Sanctuary Sparrow, ch. 14 (1983)

Dave — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 20:14:59 +0000

“She chose her way and it’s taken her far out of reach of man’s mercy, if ever she’d lived to face trial. And now, I suppose,” he said, seeing his friend’s face still thoughtful and undismayed, “you will tell me roundly that God’s reach is longer than man’s.”
“It had better be,” said Brother Cadfael very solemnly, “otherwise we are all lost.”

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 8, The Sanctuary Sparrow, ch. 14 (1983)
(Source)

Concluding words of the book.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 10, Dead Man’s Ransom, ch. 1 (1984)

Dave — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:23:08 +0000

Those who go forth to the battle never return without holes in their ranks, like gaping wounds. Pity of all pities that those who lead never learn, and the few wise men among those who follow never quite avail to teach. But faith given and allegiance pledged are stronger than fear, thought Cadfael, and that, perhaps, is virtue, even in the teeth of death. Death, after all, is the common expectation from birth. Neither heroes nor cowards can escape it.

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 10, Dead Man’s Ransom, ch. 1 (1984)
(Source)

On return of Shrewsbury's troops after fighting battles for King Stephen against the Earls of Chester and Lincoln.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 10, Dead Man’s Ransom, ch. 15, [Cadfael] (1984)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 20:45:44 +0000

Once, I remember, Father Abbot said that our purpose is justice, and with God lies the privilege of mercy. But even God, when he intends mercy, needs tools to his hand.

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 10, Dead Man’s Ransom, ch. 15, [Cadfael] (1984)
(Source)

Closing words of the book.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 14, The Rose Rent, ch. 2 (1986)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

“God does indeed forbid,” said Radulfus dryly, “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.”

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 16, The Confession of Brother Haluin, ch. 3 (1988)

Dave — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:19:59 +0000

Cadfael was not of the opinion that a man’s main business in this world was to save his own soul. There are other ailing souls, as there are ailing bodies, in need of a hoist towards health.

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 16, The Confession of Brother Haluin, ch. 3 (1988)
(Source)

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 17, The Heretic’s Apprentice, ch. 12 (1990)

Dave — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:59:22 +0000

Books have another value, to those who have fallen forever and wholly in love with them. There are those who would cheat for them, steal for them, lie for them, even if then they could never show or boast of their treasures to any other creature. Kill for them? It was not impossible.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 17, The Heretic’s Apprentice, ch. 13 [Elave] (1990)

Dave — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:14:36 +0000

Did you ever think what a waste it would be if you burned a man for what he believed at twenty, when what he might believe and write at forty would be hailed as the most blessed of holy writ?

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 17, The Heretic’s Apprentice, ch. 13 [Elave] (1990)
(Source)

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 19, The Summer of the Danes, ch. 14 (1991)

Dave — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 20:26:20 +0000

“It’s true, now and again my feet itch for the road.” He was looking deep into himself, where old memories survived, and remained, after their fashion, warming and satisfying, but of the past, never to be repeated, no longer desirable. “But when it comes down to it,” said Cadfael, with profound content, “as roads go, the road home is as good as any.”

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 19, The Summer of the Danes, ch. 14 (1991)
(Source)

Concluding words of the book.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 19, The Summer of the Danes, ch. 14 (1991)

Dave — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 17:00:40 +0000

“But when it comes down to it,” said Cadfael, with profound content, “as roads go, the road home is as good as any.”

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
Cadfael Chronicles No. 19, The Summer of the Danes, ch. 14 (1991)
(Source)

Closing words.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 20, The Holy Thief, ch. 10 [Aline] (1992)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

The step from perfectly ordinary things into the miraculous seems to me so small, almost accidental, that I wonder why it astonishes you at all, or why you trouble to reason about it. If it were reasonable it could not be miraculous, could it?

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 20, The Holy Thief, ch. 11 (1992)

Dave — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 23:11:19 +0000

Half humanity was here in this lean dark girl beside him, and that half of humanity had its right to reason, determine and meddle, no less than the male half. After all, they were equally responsible for humankind continuing. There was not an archbishop or an abbot in the world who had not had a flesh and blood mother, and come of a passionate coupling.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 20, The Holy Thief, ch. 11 (1992)

Dave — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 17:24:20 +0000

He was about to urge her to let well alone and trust heaven to do justice, but then he had a sudden vision of heaven’s justice as the Church sometimes applied it, in good but dreadful faith, with all the virtuous narrowness and pitilessness of minds blind and deaf to the infinite variety of humankind, its failings, and aspirations, and needs, and forgetful of all the Gospel reminders concerning publicans and sinners.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 21, Brother Cadfael’s Penance, ch. 1 (1994)

Dave — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 17:03:29 +0000

He had never before been quite so acutely aware of the particular quality and function of November, its ripeness and its hushed sadness. The year proceeds not in a straight line through the seasons, but in a circle that brings the world and man back to the dimness and mystery in which both began, and out of which a new seed-time and a new generation are about to begin. Old men, thought Cadfael, believe in that new beginning, but experience only the ending. It may be that God is reminding me that I am approaching my November. Well, why regret it? November has beauty, has seen the harvest into the barns, even laid by next year’s seed. No need to fret about not being allowed to stay and sow it, someone else will do that. So go contentedly into the earth with the moist, gentle, skeletal leaves, worn to cobweb fragility, like the skins of very old men, that bruise and stain at the mere brushing of the breeze, and flower into brown blotches as the leaves into rotting gold. The colours of late autumn are the colours of the sunset: the farewell of the year and the farewell of the day. And of the life of man? Well, if it ends in a flourish of gold, that is no bad ending.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 21, Brother Cadfael’s Penance, ch. 1 (1994)

Dave — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 20:47:34 +0000

Radulfus had the wise man’s distant respect for perfection, but no great expectation of meeting it in the way.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 21, Brother Cadfael’s Penance, ch. 2 (1994)

Dave — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 17:37:06 +0000

Cadfael buckled his saddlebags before him, and mounted a little stiffly, but with plain pleasure. Considerately, Hugh refrained from offering help. Sixty-five is an age deserving of respect and reverence from the young, but those who have reached it do not always like to be reminded.

Peters, Ellis -- Cadfael Chronicles No. 21, Brother Cadfael’s Penance, ch. 16 (1994)

Dave — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 19:07:48 +0000

You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple.