Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.

Brother Cadfael knew better than to be in a hurry, where souls were concerned. There was plenty of elbow-room in eternity.

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment!

It’s a kind of arrogance to be so certain you’re past redemption.

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

Only people who’re positive enough to have friends have enemies. When you’re as glum and morose as he was, people just give up and go away.

When harried, we go as far as we dare, and with those we’re sure of we dare go very far, knowing where forgiveness is certain.

Well, you can fairly claim the day hasn’t been wasted,’ owned Cadfael generously, ‘if something’s been learned.

Don’t reach for the halo too soon. You have plenty of time to enjoy yourself, even a little maliciously sometimes, before you settle down to being a saint.

I think there are some who live on a knife-edge in the soul, and at times are driven to hurl themselves into the air, at the mercy of heaven or he’ll which way to fall.

A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there’s no escape from either.

Men drunk with ambition and power do not ground their weapons, nor stop to recognise the fellow-humanity of those they are about to slay. – Pg. 2

What are wits for unless a man uses them?

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...

If none of us ever fell short, or put a foot astray, everything would be good in this great world, but we stumble and fall, every one. We must deal with what we have.” –...

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...

God, nevertheless, required a little help from men, and what he mostly got was hindrance.

Innocence is an infinitely fragile thing and thought can sometimes injure, even destroy it. – Pg. 254

Murder is murder,as much a curse to the slayer as to the slain, and cannot be a matter of indifference, whoever the dead may be.

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.

They sell courage of a sort in the taverns. And another sort, though not for sale, a man can find in the confessional. Try the alehouses and the churches, Hugh. In either a man can...

In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with...

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

So, wonder! I also wonder about you,” said Cadfael mildly. “Do you know any human creatures who are not strangers, one to another?

All the things of the wild have their proper uses. Only misuse makes them evil.

One century’s saint is the next century’s heretic … and one century’s heretic is the next century’s saint. It is as well to think long and calmly before affixing either name to any man.

Well, a man can but hold fast to what he believes right, and even the opponent he baulks should value him for that.

The voices of cold reason were talking, as usual, to deaf ears.

Oh, sometimes I like to put the sand of doubt into the oyster of my faith.” (Br. Cadfael)

Perhaps thought really is prayer.

Meet every man as you find him, for we’re all made the same under habit, robe or rags. Some better made than others, and some better cared for, but on the same pattern, all.

Every man has within him only one life and one nature … It behooves a man to look within himself and turn to the best dedication possible those endowments he has from his Maker. You...

He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands,