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

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

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.

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

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.

There never was, for all I could ever learn, a time when living was easy and peaceful.

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

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

Child, [death] is with us always,” said Cadfael, patient beside him. “Last summer ninety-five men died here in the town, none of whom had done murder. For choosing the wrong side, they died. It falls upon blameless women in war, even in peace at the hands of evil men. It falls upon children who never did harm to any, upon old men, who in their lives have done good to many, and yet are brutally and senselessly slain. Never let it shake your faith that there is a balance hereafter. What you see is only a broken piece from a perfect whole.” “Such justice as we see is also but a broken shred. But it is our duty to preserve what we may, and fit together such fragments as we find, and take the rest on trust.

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

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.

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.

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.

What are wits for unless a man uses them?

There's an art in every labour.

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.

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment!

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 be quiet and think.

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

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.

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

Perhaps thought really is prayer.

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

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

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

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.

The ugliness that man can do to man might cast a shadow between you and the certainty of the justice and mercy God can do to him hereafter. It takes half a lifetime to reach the spot where eternity is always visible, and the crude injustice of the hour shrivels out of sight.

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

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 me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the price.You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple.

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.

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.

But there are some born to do penance by nature. Maybe they lift the load for some of us who take it quite comfortably that we're humankind, and not angels.

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." - Cadfael, Pg. 245-6

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

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

Questions are as supple as willow wands, it's easy to brush by them and slip them aside, and no one the worse for it.

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

Truth like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil however deeply sown will make its way to the light.

There is in the end no remedy but truth. It is the one course that cannot be evil.