There was a good deal to be said, Hilary decided, for middle age and infirmity. The years in which one demanded much of life were left behind, together with the bitterness of not getting what one wanted. One's values, too, were altered. Gifts that once one took for granted, sunshine and birdsong, freedom from pain, sleep and one's daily bread, seemed now so extraordinarily precious.
Elizabeth GoudgeNot quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures.
Elizabeth GoudgeSensible fathers and mothers, when their children marry, go back to the old days and renew their youth.
Elizabeth Goudge[I]f you believe in God omnipresent, then you must believe everything that comes into your life, person or event, must have something of God in it to be experienced and loved; not hated.
Elizabeth Goudgeautumn days have a holiness that spring lacks ... They are like old serene saints for whom death has lost its terror.
Elizabeth GoudgeThere always comes, I think, a sort of peak in suffering at which either you win over your pain or your pain wins over you, according as to whether you can, or cannot, call up that extra ounce of endurance that helps you to break through the circle of yourself and do the hitherto impossible. That extra ounce carries you through 'le dernier quart d' heure.' Psychologist have a name for it, I believe. Christians call it the Grace of God.
Elizabeth Goudge