Elizabeth Goudge Quotes & Sayings

[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 Goudge

His hostess was one of those women who even in an overcrowded room can create a sense of spaciousness. — Elizabeth Goudge

What is the scent of water?"
"Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew. — Elizabeth Goudge

To know perfect happiness a woman may be a mother, but must be a grandmother. — Elizabeth Goudge

Whatever had made the Dean take such a fancy to him, a cowardly, selfish, obstinate, ugly old fellow like him? He would never understand it. He took the piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at that too. Faith in God. God. A word he had always refused. But the Dean had said, put the word love in its place. — Elizabeth Goudge

Though her head was aching too much for her to reason with herself, she could think of nice things - the Cumberland hills, her lambs, her Nannie, who had taught her this trick of detachment. "When you're sick or sorry, child" she had said, "think of other things as much as you are able. It's just practice, Start young and you'll get the trick of it." And most astonishingly, after a little while of going back to childhood and remembering Nannie in her blue print dress, with her white apron on and her sleeves rolled up, turning on the bath-water and humming a little song as she did it, she fell asleep. — Elizabeth Goudge

I can only grow to what I will be from what I am, and where I am, so discontent is quite useless. Much more sensible to accept the one and love the other. — Elizabeth Goudge

Insufficient nourishment in the early morning leads to pessimism and doubts. — Elizabeth Goudge

Jean was visited by one of her rare moments of happiness, one of those moments when the goodness of God was so real to her that it was like taste and scent; the rough strong taste of honey in the comb and the scent of water. Her thoughts of God had a homeliness that at times seemed shocking, in spite of their power, which could rescue her from terror or evil with an ease that astonished her. — Elizabeth Goudge

Yet surely that story she had imagined was a real thing? If you created a story with your mind surely it was just as much there as a piece of needlework that you created with your fingers? You could not see it with your bodily eyes, that was all ... the invisible world must be saturated with the stories that men tell both in their minds and by their lives. They must be everywhere, these stories, twisting together, penetrating existence like air breathed into the lungs, and how terrible, how awful, thought Henrietta, if the air breathed should be foul. How dare men live, how dare they think or imagine, when every action and every thought is a tiny thread to ar or enrich that tremendous tapestried story that man weaves on the loom that God has set up, a loom that stretches from heaven above to hell below, and from side to side of the universe ... — Elizabeth Goudge

Winter, spring and summer did not accommodate themselves to one's mood as autumn did. They lacked its gentleness. — Elizabeth Goudge

Isaac's face lit up. The phrase was literally true in his case, for his cheeks and the tip of his nose shone rosily and his blue eyes were suddenly as flooded with light as sapphires held to the sun. In the country of his mind the advancing shadows were halted and rolled back upon themselves like the fen mists when the wind suddenly freshened from the sea. He glowed and the Dean felt a pang of sadness. What would this man have been, what would he have done, had he not been so wrenched from the true by the sufferings of his boyhood? Yet perhaps without them he would not have been Bella's fairy man. Such twistings sometimes forced out poison but at other times honey. It depended what was at the heart of a man. — Elizabeth Goudge

...To search for colours, fumble for words,
Strive to catch in earthly song
The echo of greater music,
To fail with heartbreak and give
The heartbreaks to each other with our love,
Can this be why we live? — Elizabeth Goudge

Writers and painters have a medium that can foster self-effacements. Actors haven't. An actor can't hide himself behind paper or canvas. If you're not there your art's not there. That's why we actors are often such self-centered objects. — Elizabeth Goudge

In a city the multiplicity of threads forced a whirling confusion on the loom but here the simple pattern and the slow weaving made purpose more discernible. — Elizabeth Goudge

The years stretched before her, a long and dusty way, yet if she could walk humbly along it she might find that life, unfolding slowly, keeps its best secrets till the end. — Elizabeth Goudge

All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart. — Elizabeth Goudge

Believe instead in love. It is my faith that love shaped the universe as you shape your clocks, delighting in creation. I believe that just as you wish to give me your clock in love, refusing payment, so God loves me and gave Himself for me. That is my faith. I cannot presume to force it upon you, I can only ask you in friendship to consider it. — Elizabeth Goudge

There began to come to her a first dim realization of God's humility. Rejected by the proud in His own right by what humble means He chose to succor them; through the spirit of a child, a poor gypsy or an old man, by a song perhaps, or even it might be by the fall of a leaf or the scent of a flower. For His infinite and humble patience nothing was too small to advance His purpose of salvation and eternity was not too long for its accomplishment. — Elizabeth Goudge

The Eliots found it a queer sort of evening - a transition evening. Hitherto the Herb of Grace had been to them a summer home; they had known it only permeated with sun and light, flower-scented, windows and doors open wide. But now doors were shut, curtains drawn to hide the sad, grey dusk. Instead of the lap of the water against the river wall they heard the whisper of the flames, and instead of the flowers in the garden they smelt the roasting chestnuts, burning apple logs, the oil lamps, polish - all the home smells. This intimacy with the house was deepening; when winter came it would be deeper still. Nadine glanced over her shoulder at the firelight gleaming upon the dark wood of the panelling, at the shadows gathering in the corners, and marvelled to see how the old place seemed to have shrunk in size with the shutting out of the daylight. It seemed gathering them in, holding them close. — Elizabeth Goudge

In what he suffered, as in all true suffering and in true joy, there was the quality of eternity. He could not believe it would ever end. — Elizabeth Goudge

It is when children start to question their happiness that they lose it and grow up. — Elizabeth Goudge

He felt him transfixed, captured, nailed by his vow to the hard wood of the impossible thing he had to do. — Elizabeth Goudge

Nd looking up into Abednego's face she fought a battle inside herself with the thing that it was, a sort of grabbing thing, and then she held Gertrude out to him. "You have her," she said. — Elizabeth Goudge

These warm lovers of life, born under dancing stars, how without them was life tolerable for those, such as himself, whose bias was towards sadness, their stars cloud-hidden when their spirits woke to life ... In this world, surely, there should always be a mating between the lovers of life and the endurers of it, in couples they should find a causeway for their feet and walk it together, the star-shine of the one comforting the darkness of the other. — Elizabeth Goudge

Butterflies ... not quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures — Elizabeth Goudge

When the demon was muscling for action she was like the princess in the fairy tale from whose mouth toads fell. The small part of her which remained outside the dominion of her temper stood aghast but inefficient as one after the other the reptiles showered forth. — Elizabeth Goudge

In the old days he had clutched life with such violence that the juice of it ran out between his fingers and was lost, but now he would touch it delicately, thankful for the good and accepting the ills with patience. — Elizabeth Goudge

Sensible fathers and mothers, when their children marry, go back to the old days and renew their youth. — Elizabeth Goudge

In one life only had the fighting, the healing, the teaching, the praying, and the suffering held equal and perfect place, and that life could never on earth be lived again. For some dying men, he thought, there would have been comfort in the old belief that a soul comes back to earth again and again, the fighter returning to pray and the teacher to heal. Once he had half believed that himself, but now he could not. Once only had the perfect life been focused in a human body. He had not returned. Why should we? The Word now taught and healed, fought and suffered, through the yielded wills of other men. — Elizabeth Goudge

'Many waters cannot quench love' was said of divine, not human, love, which the Dean knew was not always tough enough to survive the indifference of misery. That was one of the chief reasons why he struggled to do away with misery. — Elizabeth Goudge

You should have no fear," said Harriet. "There's no sense in fear."
"I've been afraid all my life, Harriet," said Michael.
"Nonsensical all your life, you mean," said Harriet. "But a person being nonsensical through the first half of his life is no reason to my way of thinking why he should be nonsensical through the second half too. It's nice to have a bit of change. — Elizabeth Goudge

Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own," said Mary. "I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it. — Elizabeth Goudge

What is the distinguishing mark of an aristocrat?' she asked him suddenly.
'Reverence,' he replied. — Elizabeth Goudge

One was born a certain sort of person, and though by ceasless struggle one might become as nice as that sort of person ever is, one could never become as nice as a nicer sort of person. — Elizabeth Goudge

These black times go as they come and we do not know how they come or why they go. But we know that God controls them, as he controls the whole vast cobweb of the mystery of things. — Elizabeth Goudge

Whatever happens I'll not be afraid again; for, when you've once pushed through the place of torment to the peace beyond, you know that you can do it again. You know there's a strength somewhere that you can call upon. You've confidence. — Elizabeth Goudge

Given belief in God, a good digestion and a mind in working order life's still a thing to be grateful for. — Elizabeth Goudge

Those who have deeply suffered in some particular way are welded together in an understanding incomprehensible to those who have not so suffered. — Elizabeth Goudge

There is always something particularly delightful about exceptions to a rule. — Elizabeth Goudge

Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see. — Elizabeth Goudge

Love still owned him, steered him, drew him to itself. — Elizabeth Goudge

Bringing up children, she thought, was like pouring ginger beer into a tumbler. All went well up to a certain point, and then it all frothed over the top. — Elizabeth Goudge

A well-trained dog is like religion, it sets the deserving at their ease and is a terror to evildoers. — Elizabeth Goudge

Your God is a trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, 'Lord, have mercy. Thee I adore. Into Thy hands.' Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these, you will do well. — Elizabeth Goudge

Henrietta, at heart a contemplative person, enjoyed alarums and excursions for a short while only. For her a background of quiet was essential to happiness. It had been fun to stay with Felicity, to be petted and spoiled by her friends, to be applauded by big audiences in a crowded theater, to have lovely things to eat and go to the zoo whenever she liked, but it had completely upset her equilibrium and she had felt as though she had been turned upside down so that everything that was worth while in her mind fell out. She, like everyone else, had to find out by experience in what mode of life she could best adjust herself to the twin facts of her own personality and the moment of time in which destiny had planted it, and she was lucky perhaps that she found out so early. — Elizabeth Goudge

He was a convinced but hardworked rationalist, always hard at it re-convincing himself of his convictions. — Elizabeth Goudge

One thing however, Nat did for him. He taught him carpentry. He learned to distinguish between the different kinds of wood, to love them and understand their ways. Realizing that the boy had great skill with his hands Nat gave him a few tools for his own and taught him wood carving ... First the books and then the wood. Each was a milestone for him on the way through. — Elizabeth Goudge

And the written words were footsteps, feet running hard to another person. — Elizabeth Goudge

Genius creates from the heart and when the artifact is broken so is the heart. — Elizabeth Goudge

There 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

Cleanliness', chuckled Sir Benjamin, noting his great niece's delighted smile as her eyes rested upon him, 'comes next to godliness, eh, Maria? — Elizabeth Goudge

He had discovered that the choice between self-love or love of something other than self offers no escape from suffering either way, it is merely a choice between two woundings, of the pride or of the heart. — Elizabeth Goudge

If you lose your reason, you lose it into the hands of God ... It's the only place where anything is safe. And when you're dead it's only what's there you'll have. Nothing else. — Elizabeth Goudge

Peace ... Henrietta was not quite sure what it was but she knew it was very important. If one wanted it, Grandfather had told her once, one must not hit back when fate hit hard but must allow the hammer-strokes to batter out a hollow place inside one into which peace, like cool water, could flow. — Elizabeth Goudge

Accustomed like the white blackbird to the loneliness of eccentricity yet never quite reconciled to it, they found in each other's oddness a most comforting compatibility. — Elizabeth Goudge

Perhaps she had not understood the heights to which prayer must rise before it becomes pure praise, the fortitude that is demanded before it can share in the redemption of man's soul. The man of prayer beside her had said it was action, the greatest activity there is. She began to believe him. — Elizabeth Goudge

His hunger for knowledge gave him no rest, it was both his bane and his joy. — Elizabeth Goudge

There was a leap of joy in him, like a flame lighting up in a dark lantern. At this moment he believed it was worth it. This moment of supreme beauty was worth all the wretchedness of the journey. It was always worth it. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." It was the central truth of existence, and all men knew it, though they might not know that they knew it. Each man followed his own star through so much pain because he knew it, and at journey's end all the innumerable lights would glow into one. — Elizabeth Goudge

If you think this life is all there is," he said, "then self-sacrifice must seem to you sheer insanity. If you do not think so then it is only common sense. It all depends on your point of view." (Hilary Eliot to David Eliot, Chapter 9) — Elizabeth Goudge

Autumn days have a holiness that spring lacks ... They are like old serene saints for whom death has lost its terror. — Elizabeth Goudge

...how to deal with fear.

To begin with, don't fight it, accept it without shame, just as you would accept any other limitation you happen to be born with, like a cast in the eye or a lame foot. Willing acceptance is half the battle... Be willing to be afraid, don't be afraid of your fear... every man has within him a store of strength, both physical and spiritual, of which he is utterly unaware until the moment of crisis. You will not tap it until the moment of crisis, but you can be quite certain that when that moment comes it will not fail you. — Elizabeth Goudge

He sat for a long time and thought to himself that he wished he knew how to pray, yet he knew, untaught, how by abandonment of himself to let the quietness take hold of him. — Elizabeth Goudge

Is independence so bad for one?" asked Daphne.
"Nothing worse," said Harriet. "It gives you a wonderful conceit of yourself. — Elizabeth Goudge

And then I say to myself that we should believe in that which we felt when we were strong and happy rather than in that which we feel when we are sick and sad. Do you not think, Judith, that one is more truly oneself in times of joy than in times of sorrow? — Elizabeth Goudge

Don't waste hate on pink geranium. — Elizabeth Goudge

In the utter peace and stillness the world seemed holding its breath, a little apprehensively, drawing near to the fire to warm itself. There was none of that sense of urgeful, pushing life that robs even a calm spring day of the sense of silence; life was over and the year was just waiting, harboring its strength for the final storms and turmoil of its death. The warmth and the color of maturity was there, exultant and burning, visible to the eyes, but the prophecy of decay was felt in a faint shiver of cold at morning and evening and a tiny sigh of the elms at midnight when a wandering ghost of a wind plucked a little of their gold away from them. — Elizabeth Goudge

One is seldom unchanged by the death of those one loves. It gives me a deeper knowledge of them, and so of oneself in regard to them. — Elizabeth Goudge

If in this life only we have hope ... By God, that was true, too. This quickening divine power that he had experienced could not be confined to this world, for cruel, sordid, ugly, devilish can be this world, and by the nature of things that power could have neither source nor ending in it; only flow through it, around it, over it, under it, gathering up the gold into its eternal shining and burning the dross in its fire. — Elizabeth Goudge

Imagination comes from yourself and can deceive you, but vision is a gift from outside yourself - like light striking on your closed eyelids and lifting them to see what's really there. — Elizabeth Goudge

I've never been one for religion, but yet I've never been what ye could call an unbeliever. What I say is, nothin' don't seem impossible once you've clapped eyes on a whale. — Elizabeth Goudge

It's not your business to decide if a woman you love should, or should not, marry you. It's her business. Tell her all about yourself and leave the decision to her. God knows it's trouble enough having to make one's own decisions in life without having to make other people's too. — Elizabeth Goudge

He knew what it was like to have lost belief in one's own excellence. One could not move through life without a measure of outward assurance any more than one could go about without a suit of clothes, but it needed a lot of practice before one could hold the thing steady outwardly while remaining inwardly aware that there was nothing to be assured about. — Elizabeth Goudge

I have known him nearly all my life, and I am going to marry him, so that there won't ever be a time when I shan't know him. — Elizabeth Goudge

He grinned at her, and she grinned at him, and it seemed to Maria that suddenly the sun came out. — Elizabeth Goudge

This modern craze for putting the young in positions of authority - headmasters in their thirties, bishops without a gray hair on their heads, generals who scarcely need to use a razor - ever since it took hold the world's gone steadily downhill. — Elizabeth Goudge

Proud folk separate themselves from others, judging them ... To criticize others we must hold them from us, at arm's length so to speak. And then before you know where you are you've pushed them away and you're the poorer. — Elizabeth Goudge

He remembered suddenly, at this moment, as he looked at the squares of moonlight lying on the floor, the time when he had first realized that pain is a thing that we must face and come to terms with if life is to be lived with dignity an not merely muddled through like an evil dream ... In some vague way he had understood that dark things are necessary; without them the silver moonlight would just stream away into nothingness, but with them it can be held and arranged into beautiful squares. (David Eliot, Chapter 4) — Elizabeth Goudge

Marriage is a very long process ... — Elizabeth Goudge

All we are asked to bear we can bear. That is a law of the spiritual life. The only hindrance to the working of this law, as of all benign laws, is fear. — Elizabeth Goudge

He was a greater craftsman even than Isaac, and he knew it, and so, presently, did Isaac.
There was a greatness in Isaac. One evening at supper, between one bite of sausage and another, he was able to acknowledge that it was so. "He must increase, but I must decrease," he said to himself. He did not know where the quotation came from, or that in taking it to himself he had taken a fence at which many balked or fell. He finished the sausage without having the slightest idea that he was not the same man that he had been when he embarked upon it. The next morning he smiled at Job and asked him if he would like to help him with his clock. Job went crimson to the roots of his hair and unable to speak bent to pick up a tool he had dropped under the workbench. When he reappeared he was no more able to speak than he had been before, but his face was shining like the morning sun. From that moment the two increasingly loved each other. — Elizabeth Goudge

Illness was admirable training in the creative art of grateful acceptance. Pain accepted was just pain, and heavy, but Harriet believed that pain gladly accepted took wings, went somewhere and did something. — Elizabeth Goudge

The function of the educator is to discover in each individual child the gifts implanted in her by Almighty God and to develop and dedicate them to His service. — Elizabeth Goudge

The simple little words came easily, fitting themselves to the tune that had come out of the harpsichord. It didn't seem to her that she made them up at all. It seemed to her that they flew in from the rose-garden, through the open window, like a lot of butterflies, poised themselves on the point of her pen, and fell off it on to the paper. — Elizabeth Goudge

But tonight he remembered only the warm rooms and the faces of men and women bent over their bowls of steaming soup, and the children already asleep in their beds. He felt for them all a profound love, and he glowed. The moment of his loving was in the world of time merely sixty seconds ticked out by his watch, but in another dimension it was an arc of light encircling the city and leaving not one heart within it untouched by blessedness. Then the clocks began to strike, and the light of the ugly little man's moment of self-forgetfulness was drawn back again into the deep warmth within him. And he understood nothing of what had happened to him, only that now, for a little while, for a few moments or a few days, he would be happy and feel safe. — Elizabeth Goudge

There's much that goes to the makin' of a man or woman into somethin' better than a brute beast, but there's three things in chief, an' they're the places where life sets us down, an' the folks life knocks us up against, an'
not the things ye get, but the things ye don't get. — Elizabeth Goudge

Ferranti's thoughts had been his. As before he had understood his remorse so now he understood the mental chains that had imprisoned him. The poor wretch could not move. Misery had become apathy and apathy had brought the inevitable paralysis of the will. — Elizabeth Goudge

All the best things are seen first of all at a far distance. — Elizabeth Goudge

We're all too apt to think that things are as we feel them to be, forgetting that they have an objective value apart from what we feel about them. An embittered mind colors the world black for its owner yet that does not alter the fact that the world is a treasure house of beauty and love. — Elizabeth Goudge

The very old and the very young have something in common that makes it right that they should be left alone together. Dawn and sunset see stars shining in a blue sky; but morning and midday and afternoon do not, poor things. — Elizabeth Goudge

Love, and nothing else, was eternal. Love is the Lord by whom we escape death. — Elizabeth Goudge

Must we go in?" asked Margary.
"Yes," said Mary. "We are only given times like these so that we can go back again. Come along." And she parted the trailing branches of the willow and led the way out. — Elizabeth Goudge

Fairyland ... Paradise ... In this place and at this time, Marguerite could know that the one was a parable of the other and both were synonyms for something that had no name. — Elizabeth Goudge

They gazed at her with awe, feeling to the full that medieval reverence for someone obviously touched in the head. — Elizabeth Goudge

Water, wind and birdsong were the echoes in this quiet place of a great chiming symphony that was surging around the world. Knee-deep in grasses and moon daisies, Stella stood and listened, swaying a little as the flowers and trees were swaying, her spirit voice singing loudly, though her lips were still, and every pulse in her body beating its hammer strokes in time to the song. — Elizabeth Goudge

Could you understand the meaning of light if there were no darkness to point the contrast? Day and night, life and death, love and hatred; since none of these things can have any being at all apart from the existence of the other; only the indolence of human nature finds it so hard to pierce through to the other side. — Elizabeth Goudge

I think it will last," said Grandfather. "In my experience when people once begin to read they go on. They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must. Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greed for life, you know, and our short span of existence can't give us all that we hunger for, the time is too short and our capacity not large enough. But in books we experience all life vicariously. — Elizabeth Goudge

What would normal people think if they knew what went on in a writer's mind below the surface? They'd think him even more around the bend than they had previously supposed if they could see the witches' cauldron of images and memories boiling up from the subconscious, impressions whirling in from without, ideas and insights bursting up like bubbles and gone again before they can be seized. And the hopelessness of the business, the whole infuriating, exhausting, fascinating business of grabbing something out of the turmoil and imposing upon it some faint shadow or rumor of the order, pattern and rhythm of the world. — Elizabeth Goudge

Everyone needed someone in the world who was like his other hand. You can't hold much or do much with one hand only. It is with both hands that a man lifts the garnered gold of the wheatsheaf and the brimming bowl of milk, with both hands that he builds his house, with both hand, clasped together, that he prays. — Elizabeth Goudge

Job's was a temperament that swung easily from one extreme to the other and now misery was lost in a joy that seemed lifting him off his feet. At this moment personal wretchedness seemed to him a small thing in comparison with the vast shining outer world that was always there, sustaining and holding him even when he did not remember or notice it, small even in comparison with his own world that he held within himself. The two, echoing and calling to each other, reflected some mystery that was greater than either. — Elizabeth Goudge