“I have always known that the best of the Saracens could out-Christian many of us Christians.”

“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 we expect and demand.”

“Bitter though it may be to many, Cadfael concluded, there is no substitute for truth, in this or any case.”

“Here I begin to know that blessedness is what can be snatched out the passing day and put away to think of afterwards.”

“If ever you do go back, what is it you want of Evesham?""Do I know? [...] The silence, it might be ... or the stillness. To have no more running to do ... to have arrived, and have no more need to run. The appetite changes. Now I think it would be a beautiful thing to be still.”

“I do believe I begin to grasp the nature of miracles! For would it be a miracle, if there was any reason for it? Miracles have nothing to do with reason. Miracles contradict reason, they strike clean across mere human deserts, and deliver and save where they will. If they made sense, they would not be miracles.”

“Now have ado with a man!”