Susanna Kearsley

“I do promise that you will survive this. Faith, my own heart is so scattered round the country now, I marvel that it has the strength each day to keep me standing. But it does,' she said, and drawing in a steady breath she pulled back just enough to raise a hand to wipe Sophia's tears. 'It does. And so will yours.''How can you be so sure?''Because it is a heart, and knows no better.”

“So, you see, my heart is held forever by this place," she said. "I cannot leave.”

“We don't let them die, in Wales--Merlin, and Arthur and Owain--we keep them close by and asleep in the hills to be awakended if ever we need them.”

“I believe there are no random meetings in our lives – that everyone we touch, who touches us, has been put in our path for a reason. The briefest encounter can open a door, or heal a wound, or close a circle that was started long before your birth.”

“When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down, Creep home and take your place there, The spent and maimed among: God grant you find one face there You loved when all was young.”

“Tis action moves the world....[in] the game of chess, mind that: ye cannot leave your men to stand unmoving on the board and hope to win. A soldier must first step upon the battlefield if does mean to cross it.”

“Tis never the place, but the people one shares it with who are the cause of our happiest memories.”

“If it is true that men have souls that do survive them," he went on, ignoring me, "and if those souls are born again to life, you need not worry that my ghost will haunt you. I'll haunt you in the flesh, instead.”

“I've told you once I would not force you to my will ... When we become lovers, it will be because you desire as much as I-Richard”

“d'you think I'd let a little thing like the grave come between us?-Richard”

“These are your beautiful days, Julia Beckett," he promised softly.”

“My pleasure," he assured me, propping one shoulder against the doorjamb and folding his arms across his chest. "Rather nice change from my normal daily routine. I don't often have comely young maidens throwing themselves at my feet.""Yes, well," I said, coloring, "that won't happen again."He smiled down at me, and after a final handshake I made my departure. I had almost reached the end of the neatly edged walk when he spoke."What a pity," he said, but I don't think I was meant to hear it.”

“Ever try to hold a butterfly? It can't be done. You damage them," he said. 'As gentle as you try to be, you take the powder from their wings and they won't ever fly the same. It's kinder to let them go.”

“Life is always uncertain,'he said with a shrug. 'We cannot let the fear of what might happen stop us living as we choose.”

“..the fields might fall to fallow and the birds might stop their song awhile; the growing things might die and lie in silence under snow, while through it all the cold sea wore its face of storms and death and sunken hopes...and yet unseen beneath the waves a warmer current ran that, in its time, would bring the spring.”

“Oliver...''What?''I do like you.''But?''I just don't want you to think that I'm... that is, I'm really not looking for...''Hey.' I could hear the faint smile in his voice. 'It's a book, not an etching.”

“Men who watch, and say little, very often are much wiser than the men they serve.”

“There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment.”

“But life, if nothing else, had taught her promises weren't always to be counted on, and what appeared at first a shining chance might end in bitter disappointment.”

“Knowing that the battle will not end the way he wishes does not make it any less worthwhile the fight.”

“Whatever time we have," he said, "it will be time enough.”

“When I meet a wind I cannot fight , I can do naught but set my sails to let it take me where it will.”

“Ye'll never best your fears until ye face them”

“The past can teach us, nurture us, but it cannot sustain us. The essence of life is change, and we must move ever forward or the soul will wither and die.”