Top 30 Paula Brackston Quotes

1. “And where shall I look for thee, When I no longer hear that voice so dear? Where shall I seek the warmth that love Made all things found glow bright and clear? Look not to the heavenly stars, Nor search the lofty spires, nor bid the choir sing. I will dwell among the details of our lives; My memory will linger in all the found things. – DAPHNE BURTON-GORE.”

— Paula Brackston

2. “Such a cumbersome thing, the body of a human. Too much reliance lies in the head. Too much. We have let our frames become frailer down generations, in favor of our seething minds and greedy hearts. Instinct has been dulled by thought.”

— Paula Brackston

3. “It’s a brilliant example of a writer in total control of her material, apparently effortlessly inhabiting the minds of her characters and giving them wonderfully individual voices.”

— Paula Brackston

4. “My mind is like the willow; it flexes and springs. My heart is a knot of oak. Let them try to wound me.”

— Paula Brackston

5. “For, what is home? Surely more than a set of rooms, a roof, an address? Home suggests belonging. Suggests warmth, safety, companionship. Love.”

— Paula Brackston

6. “For whatever time we might have, my love. For whatever time we might have.”

— Paula Brackston

7. “If to be in love is to lose one’s self then I am as in love as it is possible to be, for I am utterly lost! My head is filled with thoughts of him, of the man who has so unexpectedly yet so completely claimed my heart. When I close my eyes I see him. When I dream it is of him. When I try to read a novel the words shift upon the page until they spell out his name. I am like a giddy girl, unable to be still or serious for a minute, flitting from one imagining to the next, all of him.”

— Paula Brackston

8. “If you are not able to travel, he told me, the next best thing is to read. Read all you can, girl. And store up that knowledge, for you never know when you will need it.”

— Paula Brackston

9. “We are each mistresses of our own happiness. We ought not to look to others to supply it.”

— Paula Brackston

10. “And secrets are dangerous. They start small but grow with every evasive answer or outright lie that protects them. Nevertheless, I confess to finding the closeness such conspiracy breeds irresistibly delicious.”

— Paula Brackston

11. “How much more tuneful are the birds of the woods than the birds of the water. Ducks and geese make their raucous racket without once finding a note of sweetness, whilst these tree dwellers are practiced in the art of melody. I.”

— Paula Brackston

12. “Poverty has a way of taking the edge off principles. Hunger can blunt them altogether.”

— Paula Brackston

13. “Reputation is for those who can afford it.”

— Paula Brackston

14. “Faith requires no proof. No evidence. No explanation. Faith is entirely a matter of trust and belief. We cannot know, we can only believe.”

— Paula Brackston

15. “If you are not able to travel,” he told me, “the next best thing is to read.”

— Paula Brackston

16. “Nevertheless, disease and misfortune knew no social bounds. Nor did the immensely dangerous business of childbirth.”

— Paula Brackston

17. “Must we always bedeck ourselves in prettiness to be thought pleasing? It would appear so. A woman must look a certain way to be worthy of a man’s attentions. It is expected.”

— Paula Brackston

18. “Knowledge cannot be unknown. Experience cannot be unlived.”

— Paula Brackston

19. “Bess wanted to test her strength, to take her revenge, to feel for the first time in her life what it truly meant to be the one with the power.”

— Paula Brackston

20. “Chance, fate, destiny, call it what you will. I believe when one strives sincerely toward something, something decent and right, well, destiny, like time, is not rigid or fixed; we have the ability to influence it.”

— Paula Brackston

21. “The dead are seldom silent.”

— Paula Brackston

22. “After all, are we not measured by the way in which we treat the most vulnerable members of our society?”

— Paula Brackston

23. “Many in Batchcombe have suffered greatly, William. They look for someone to blame. It was my mother who made me see that.” She hesitated, then added, “People fear what they cannot explain.”

— Paula Brackston

24. “Slowly Tegan looked up and I saw wonderment on her face. It was of the variety only ever found in those young enough to yet have minds as open as the oceans and hearts longing to have proof of magic.”

— Paula Brackston

25. “There is comfort to be had in the company of wild things and delight to be found in their trust.”

— Paula Brackston

26. “She needs the hand of friendship extended. Are we not all of us, at some time or another, dependent on the kindness of others? Would we not wish someone to act selflessly for our sake?”

— Paula Brackston

27. “There is such a magic inside of you, Tegan. Your breath carries magic onto the zephyr, your pores ooze magic onto your skin, your soul thrums with magic, indeed, your very bones vibrate with it. And still you do not believe, not in yourself. It is up to you to accept the gifts given you, child. It is up to you to revel in your own unique power. And when you do, when that moment of epiphany comes, you will be all that you can be. You will be Tegan Hedfan – The Fair One Who Flies.”

— Paula Brackston

28. “Life at any cost? I wished I shared her passion, but I did not. Was it because I considered some suffering to be intolerable, or was it because I had, at times, come to see life as a curse? I, who had shuffled about on this planet for centuries observing the ceaseless fighting and battling and struggling that people endured. Could death be such a terrible thing? Were there not times when it was the right thing? Or did I wonder that because it had been denied me? I could not be certain.”

— Paula Brackston

29. “It strikes him, as he goes out of the room, how happiness descends at the most unexpected of times, arriving in the most unlikely of places.”

— Paula Brackston

30. “Do not attempt to govern, only to guide.”

— Paula Brackston

31. “I further prescribe some of Madame Henri’s excellent cassoulet, followed by a cup or two of the finest coffee outside Paris.”

— Paula Brackston

32. “If you will listen,” I said “I will tell you a tale of witches. A tale of magic and love and loss. A story of how simple ignorance breeds fear, and how deadly that fear can be. Will you listen?”

— Paula Brackston

33. “Did money talk louder than intelligence and refinement in the seventeenth century? Probably. Why was it that the things her own time had in common with this slice of the past were mostly the things everyone would be better off without? Were people only capable of passing on the worst of themselves to future generations?”

— Paula Brackston

34. “Bess thought he looked so much younger than she remembered. Still a boy. Whereas she was no longer a girl. Her youth had been buried along with her family.”

— Paula Brackston