M.L. Stedman Quotes & Sayings

improbable to Tom that such endless space could exist — M.L. Stedman

The law's the law, but people are people. — M.L. Stedman

Awkward, like when a mad aunt starts up about Jesus at the dinner table. As Septimus showed him to the door, the sergeant replaced his hat and said quietly, "A cruel piece of mischief-making, looks like. I reckon it's about time to bury the hatchet against Fritz. All a filthy business, but there's no need for pranks like this. I'd keep it under your hat, the note. Don't want to encourage copycats." He shook hands with Septimus and made his way up the long, gum-lined drive. Back in his study, Septimus put a hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Come on, girlie, chin up. Mustn't let this get the better of you." "But — M.L. Stedman

It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilization. — M.L. Stedman

He's lived the life he's lived. He's loved the woman he's loved. No one ever has or ever will travel quite the same path on this earth and that's all right by home. — M.L. Stedman

Putting down the burden of the lie has meant giving up the freedom of the dream. — M.L. Stedman

We live with the decisions we make, Bill. That's what bravery is. Standing by the consequences of your mistakes. — M.L. Stedman

Akward, like when a mad aunt starts up about Jesus at the dinner table. As Septimus showed him to the door, the sergeant replaced his hat and said quietly, "A cruel piece of mischief-making, looks like. I reckon it's about time to bury the hatchet against Fritz. All a filthy business, but there's no need for pranks like this. I'd keep it under your hat, the note. Don't want to encourage copycats." He shook hands with Septimus and made his way up the long, gum-lined drive. Back in his study, Septimus put a hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Come on, girlie, chin up. Mustn't let this get the better of you. — M.L. Stedman

You could kill a bloke with rules, Tom knew that. And yet sometimes they were what stood between man and savagery, between man and monsters. — M.L. Stedman

Coming back last time to the house she grew up in, Isabel had been reminded of the darkness that had descended with her brothers' deaths, how loss had leaked all over her mother's life like a stain. As a fourteen-year-old, Isabel had searched the dictionary. She knew that if a wife lost a husband, there was a whole new word to describe who she was: she was now a widow. A husband became a widower. But if a parent loss a child, there was no special label for their grief. They were still just a mother or a father, even if they no longer had a son or daughter. That seemed odd. As to her own status, she wondered whether she was still technically a sister, now that her adored brothers had died. — M.L. Stedman

Stick to now. Put right the things you can put right today, and let the ones from back then go. Leave the rest to the angels, or the devil or whoever's in charge of it. — M.L. Stedman

What are you suggesting I do Ralph?'
'I'm suggesting you tell the bloody truth whatever it is. The only place lying leads is trouble.'
"Sometimes that's the only place telling the truth get you, too. — M.L. Stedman

What your wife's going to say you did or didn't do, if — M.L. Stedman

But how? How can you just get over these things, darling? ... You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it?'
'I choose to ... I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.'
'But it's not that easy.'
He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things ... I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No' - his voice became sober- 'we always have a choice. All of us.' p.323 — M.L. Stedman

the vicar. "Hath this child already — M.L. Stedman

Always slightly off balance. It was a new sensation for him. — M.L. Stedman

Perhaps the same labeling obsession caused cartographers to split this body of water into two oceans, even though it is impossible to touch an exact point at which their currents begin to differ. Splitting. Labeling. Seeking out otherness. Some things don't change. — M.L. Stedman

Nature allowed only the fit and the lucky to share this paradise-in-the-making. — M.L. Stedman

Only gradually did he notice she was pretty, and more gradually still that she was probably beautiful. — M.L. Stedman

It is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things ... I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount ... No ... we always have a choice. All of us. — M.L. Stedman

That was the only thing that had got him through the four years of blood and madness: Know exactly where your gun is when you doze for ten minutes in your dugout; always check your gas mask; see that your men have understood their orders to the letter. You don't think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation p. 33 — M.L. Stedman

You've had a whole life, a whole story, and I've come in late. I'm only trying to make sense of things. Make sense of you. — M.L. Stedman

Then this is how you do it,' and kissed her slowly, letting time fade away. And he couldn't remember any other kiss that felt quite the same. — M.L. Stedman

Every end is the beginning of something else. — M.L. Stedman

Our own star! Like the world's been made just for us! With the sunshine and the ocean. We have each other all to ourselves. — M.L. Stedman

When it comes to the ocean, anything's possible, I suppose. Anything at all. — M.L. Stedman

No one was quite sure how to treat this mourning that wasn't for a death. — M.L. Stedman

Needed mothering. Grief and distance bound the wound, perfecting the bond — M.L. Stedman

He smiled that Frank smile. "Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things." He laughed, pretending to wipe sweat from his brow. "I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a very proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No" - his voice became sober - "we always have a choice. All of us. — M.L. Stedman

As a fourteen-year-old, Isabel had searched the dictionary. She knew that if a wife lost a husband, there was a whole new word to describe who she was: she was now a widow. A husband became a widower. But if a parent lost a child, there was no special label for their grief. They were still just a mother or a father, even if they no longer had a son or a daughter. That seemed odd. As — M.L. Stedman

You could still tell at a glance who'd been over there and who'd sat the war out at home. You could smell it on a man. — M.L. Stedman

I'm all right on my own. And I'm all right with a bit of company. It's the switching from one to the other that gets me. — M.L. Stedman

We can't rightly ever talk about the future, if you think about it. We can only talk about what we imagine or wish for. It's not the same thing. — M.L. Stedman

Oh merciful God, grant that the old Adam in this child may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in her.... — M.L. Stedman

Life,' thought Septimus, ... 'you could never trust the bastard. What it gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. — M.L. Stedman

Very slowly, he turned a full circle, taking in the nothingness of it all. It seemed his lungs could never be large enough to breathe in this much air, his eyes could never see this much space, nor could he near the full extent of the rolling, roaring ocean. For the briefest moment, he had no edges. — M.L. Stedman

Years bleach away the sense of things until all that's left is a bone-white past, stripped of feeling and significance. — M.L. Stedman

He struggles to make sense of it
all this love, so bent out of shape, refracted, like light through the lens ... — M.L. Stedman

The sky gets crowded at night, and it is a bit like watching a clock, seeing the constellations slide across the sky. It's comforting to know that they'll show up, however bad the day has been, however crook things get. That used to help in France. It put things into perspective - the stars had been around since before there were people. They just kept shining, no matter what was going on. — M.L. Stedman

Isabel was squeezing the girl to her, sobbing at the touch of her, the legs fitting snugly around her waist and the head slotting automatically into the space beneath her chin, like the final piece of a jigsaw. She was oblivious to anything and anyone else ...
The woman and child were knitted together like a single being, in a world no one could enter. — M.L. Stedman

We're not always in full control of our actions. I'd be out of a job if we were.' He picked up his hat. 'I'll leave you in peace. Let you think about things. But there isn't a lot of time left. Once the magistrate gets here and sends them off to Albany, there's nothing I can do about it.' He walked through the door into the dazzle of daylight, where the sun was burning the last of the clouds away from the east. Hannah fetched the dustpan and brush, her body moving without any apparent instruction. She swept up the shards of glass, checking carefully. — M.L. Stedman

The oceans never stop. They know no beginning or end. The wind never finishes. Sometimes it disappears, but only to gather momentum from somewhere else, returning to fling itself at the island, to make a point which is lost on Tom. — M.L. Stedman

They [the stars] just kept shining, no matter what was going on. I think of the light here like that, like a splinter of a star that's fallen to earth: it just shines, no matter what is happening. — M.L. Stedman

But he wishes the people really knew who they were mourning: the Isabel he had met on the jetty, so full of life and daring and mischief. His Izzy. His other half of the sky. — M.L. Stedman

You have only to forgive once. To resent, you have to doit all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things" Frank to Hannah Roennfeldt — M.L. Stedman

You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it?" "I choose to, — M.L. Stedman

Losing of children had always been a thing that had to be gone through. There had never been any guarantee that conception would lead to a live birth, or that birth would lead to a life of any great length. — M.L. Stedman

Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone. — M.L. Stedman

When he wakes sometimes from dark dreams of broken cradles, and compasses without bearings, he pushes the unease down, lets the daylight contradict it. And isolation lulls him with the music of the lie. — M.L. Stedman

cubbies together. She was a bit older, and always had to be — M.L. Stedman

Isabel sat up, and looked deep into his eyes. 'What goes on in there, I wonder? — M.L. Stedman

Nineteen fourteen was just flags and new-smelling leather on uniforms. It wasn't until a year later that life started to feel different - started to feel as if maybe this wasn't a sideshow after all - when, instead of getting back their precious, strapping husbands and sons, the women began to get telegrams. These bits of paper which could fall from stunned hands and blow about in the knife-sharp wind, which told you that the boy you'd suckled, bathed, scolded and cried over, was - well - wasn't. Partageuse joined the world late and in a painful labor. — M.L. Stedman

Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things. - as Frank Roennfeldt — M.L. Stedman

And the stars: the sky gets crowded at night, and it is a bit like watching a clock, seeing the constellations slide across the sky. It's comforting to know that they'll show up, however bad the day has been, however crook things get. That used to help in France. It put things into perspective - the stars had been around since before there were people. They just kept shining, no matter what was going on. I think of the light here like that, like a splinter of a star that's fallen to earth: it just shines, no matter what is happening. Summer, winter, storm, fine weather. People can rely on it. — M.L. Stedman

Even Reverend Norkells urged her to spend less time in the stony darkness of the church and to "look for Christ in the life around her. — M.L. Stedman

The oceans never stop ... the wind never finishes. Sometimes it disappears, but only to gather momentum from somewhere else, returning to fling itself at the island ... Existence here is on the scale of giants. Time is in the millions of years; rocks which from a distance look like dice cast against the shore are boulders hundreds of feet wide, licked round by millennia ... — M.L. Stedman

From when she was a baby, Tom has taught the girl to respect, but not fear, the forces of nature- the lightning that might strike the light tower on Janus, the oceans that batter the island. — M.L. Stedman

between words. "It's coming! The baby's coming. — M.L. Stedman

You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. — M.L. Stedman

if a parent loses a child, there was no special label for their grief. They were still just a mother or a father, even if they no longer had a son or daughter. That seemed odd. — M.L. Stedman

Tom isn't one of the men whose legs trailed by a hank of sinews, or whose guts cascaded from their casing like slithering eels. Nor were his lungs turned to glue or his brains to stodge by the gas. But he's scarred all the same having to live in the same skin as the man who did the things that needed to be done back then. He carries that other shadow, which is cast inward. — M.L. Stedman

A lighthouse is for others; powerless to illuminate the space closest to it. — M.L. Stedman

He bit the narrow end of the flower and sucked the droplet of nectar from its base. 'You only taste it for a second. But it's worth it.' page 333 — M.L. Stedman

excoriated and burned, mapped and measured and meted — M.L. Stedman

Even though everything in the past twenty-four hours had been leading to this, even though it was a fear Isabel had harboured from the day she had first laid eyes on Lucy as a baby, still, the moment ripped through her.
'Please!' she pleaded through tears.
'Have some pity!'
Her voice reverberated around the bare walls.
'Don't take my baby away!'
As the girl was wrenched from her screaming, Isabel fainted onto the stone floor with a resounding crack. — M.L. Stedman

Your trench. The lice were "chats," the food was — M.L. Stedman

I was born to meet you, Izz. I reckon that's what I was put here for, — M.L. Stedman

Once a child gets into your heart, there's no right or wrong about it. — M.L. Stedman

Know that you have always been beloved. — M.L. Stedman

I warn you, though, he's not the happiest corpse in the morgue. Not much of a talker, Neville Whittnish. — M.L. Stedman

Or I can forgive and forget ... Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things ... we always have a choice. — M.L. Stedman

This focusing outward ... painful as it was, saved her from a more intolerable examination. — M.L. Stedman

Love's bigger than rule books. — M.L. Stedman

The only thing we can do is love that little girl as much as she deserves. And never, never hurt her! — M.L. Stedman

A goblin thought jumps onto her shouder: what's the point of tomorrow? — M.L. Stedman

As Tom walked away, every step more awful, Lucy pursued him, arms still outstretched. 'Dadda, wait for Lulu,' she begged, wounded and confused. When she tripped and fell face down on the gravel, letting out a scream, Tom could not go on, and spun around, breaking free of the policeman's grip.
'Lulu!'
He scooped her up and kissed her scratched chin.
'Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,' he murmured, his lips brushing her cheek.
'You're all right, little one. You'll be all right.'
Vernon Knuckey looked at the ground and cleared his throat.
Tom said, 'Sweetheart, I have to go away now. I hope - ' He stopped. He looked into her eyes and he stroked her hair, finally kissing her.
'Goodbye, littlie. — M.L. Stedman

Her bond with the couple who raised her is fierce and beyond questioning. She cannot name the sensation of losing them as grief. She has no word for longing or despair. — M.L. Stedman

Perhaps none of this existed, for the inches between them seemed to divide two entirely different realities, and they no longer joined. — M.L. Stedman

If the war had taught her anything, it was to take nothing for granted: that it wasn't safe to put off what mattered. Life could snatch away the things you treasured, and there was no getting them back. — M.L. Stedman

There, all gone, Luce." And the little girl continued to open and squint shut her eyes. "All gone," she said eventually. Then, "More 'tato!" and the hunt began again. Inside, Isabel swept the floor in every room, gathering the sandy dust into piles in the corner, ready to gather up. Returning from a quick inspection of the bread in the oven, she found a trail leading all through the cottage, thanks to Lucy's attempts with the dustpan. — M.L. Stedman

Point Partageuse got its name from French explorers who mapped the cape that jutted from the south-western corner of the Australian continent well before the British dash to colonize the west began in 1826. Since then, settlers had trickled north from Albany and south from the Swan River Colony, laying claim to the virgin forests in the hundreds of miles between. Cathedral-high trees were felled with handsaws to create grazing pasture; scrawny roads were hewn inch by stubborn inch by pale-skinned fellows with teams of shire horses, as this land, which had never before been scarred by man, was excoriated and burned, mapped and measured and meted out to those willing to try their luck in a hemisphere which might bring them desperation, death, or fortune beyond their dreams. — M.L. Stedman

Christ
the quickest way to send a bloke mad is to let him go on re-fighting his war till he gets it right. — M.L. Stedman

There was nothing he was going through that the stars had not seen before, somewhere, some time on this earth. — M.L. Stedman

The community of Partageuse had drifted together like so much dust in a breeze, settling in this spot where two oceans met, because there was fresh water and a natural harbor and good soil. Its port was no rival to Albany, but convenient for locals shipping timber or sandalwood or beef. Little businesses had sprung up and clung on like lichen on a rock face, and the town had accumulated a school, a variety of churches with different hymns and architectures, a good few brick and stone houses and a lot more built of weatherboard and tin. It gradually produced various shops, a town hall, even a Dalgety's stock and station agency. And pubs. Many pubs. — M.L. Stedman

When it comes to their kids, parents are all just instinct and hope. And fear. p.276 — M.L. Stedman

As long as one has good things in the mind, one can be happy. This I know. — M.L. Stedman

It occurs to him that there are different versions of himself to farewell - the abandoned eight-year-old; the delusional soldier who hovered somewhere in hell; the lightkeeper who dared to leave his heart undefended. Like Russian dolls, these lives sit within him. — M.L. Stedman

Such a mysterious business, motherhood. How brave a woman must be to embark on it. — M.L. Stedman

Sometimes, you're the one who strikes it lucky. Sometimes, it's the other poor bastard who's left with the short straw, and you just have to shut up and get on with it. — M.L. Stedman

Sometimes the contract to forget is as important as any promise to remember — M.L. Stedman

Love's what children do. — M.L. Stedman

Later still, the war memorials would sprout from the earth, dwelling not on the loss, but on what the loss had won, and what a fine thing it was to be victorious. "Victorious and dead," some muttered, "is a poor sort of victory. — M.L. Stedman

Never be sorry for smiling! — M.L. Stedman

Put right the things you can put right today. — M.L. Stedman

But a sliver of un-crossable distance had slipped between them; an invisible, wisp-thin no man's land. — M.L. Stedman

If a lighthouse looks like it's in a different place, it's not the lighthouse that's moved. — M.L. Stedman

Sometimes it's good to leave the past in the past. — M.L. Stedman

Izz, I've learned the hard way that to have any kind of a future you've got to give up hope of ever changing your past. — M.L. Stedman

No one ever has or ever will travel quite the same path on earth ... — M.L. Stedman

Your family's never in your past. You carry it around with you everywhere. — M.L. Stedman