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 do no wrong in questioning what once you held to be right for you, if now it has come to seem wrong. Put away all thought of being bound. We do not want you bound. No one who is not free can give freely.

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

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.

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

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.

The mountains of today are the molehills of tomorrow.