Quotes & Sayings About Castle Walls

My whinstone house my castle is, I have my own four walls. — Thomas Carlyle

12. They had spent a lot of time on the beach, as did everyone for miles around when the sun decided to shine. Theirs was no ordinary beach; it was a gorgeous swathe of golden sand, framed by granite cliffs upon which stood the crumbling walls of an ancient castle. There were caves to explore too, hidden in the cliffs. Children and adults alike would venture deep into them, discovering a dark world that belonged predominantly to birds and sea creatures. — Shani Struthers

A man's home is no longer his castle; it is no longer a place away from urgent tasks because the telephone breaches the walls with imperious demands. — Charles Hummel

Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner! — Bram Stoker

The crumbling castle, looming among the mists, exhaled the season, and every cold stone breathed it out. The tortured trees by the dark lake burned and dripped, their leaves snatched by the wind were whirled in wild circles through the towers. The clouds mouldered as they lay coiled, or shifted themselves uneasily upon the stone skyfield, sending up wreathes that drifted through the turrets and swarmed up hidden walls. — Mervyn Peake

This tottered ensign of my ancestors
Which swept the desert shore of that dead sea
Whereof we got the name of Mortimer,
Will I advance upon these castle-walls.
Drums, strike alarum, raise them from their sport,
And sing aloud the knell of Gaveston! — Christopher Marlowe

But Harry knew now that love was a soldier. It can invade the human heart. Build canopies through jungles. Scale castle walls. Cross moats. Love can probably walk on water. — Cathie Pelletier

And just like magic, the Isle of the Lost began to form before their eyes, including the hidden and forbidden zones. The Forbidden Fortress appeared, a menacing-looking castle of spiky walls and twisty towers, located on the edge of the island. Right in the middle of Nowhere. — Melissa De La Cruz

That's what you asked him?"
"Yeah, why?" Gina scrunched her face with confusion.
"I thought you were going to say something juicy."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, like if he would be your sex slave or something like that."
"Kelly! Why would I ask him that?"
"He's a hot guy, you're a hot girl. We're in a super romantic castle on the coast." Kelly waved her hand around the room for emphasis. "Why the hell not generate some heat in between these cold stone walls? — Lisa Carlisle

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Wealth from trade was the mainspring of Western material advance; the visible agents of change were great guns. These came of age in Europe in the 15th century. On land their potency in reducing castle walls favoured central over local power, since in general only monarchs could afford siege-trains; so nation-states were consolidated and extended into great territorial empires. At sea, guns transformed sailing ships into mobile castles virtually impregnable to opponents who lacked equally powerful ordnance. With the ocean-going gunned warship, western Europe began to extend around the globe. — Peter Padfield

These weren't just any walls, these were the stones of Milderhurst Castle, beneath whose skin the distant hours were whispering, watching. — Kate Morton

And if she asks you why you can tell her that I told you
That I'm tired of Castles in the Air
I've got a dream I want the world to share in castle walls
Just leave me to despair
Hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky
A dream come true, I'll live there 'til I die
I'm asking you, to say my last good-bye
The love we knew, ain't worth another try — Don McLean

The Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the walls surrounding a medieval castle: obsolete walls evoke nostalgia. Make your walls obsolete. — Khang Kijarro Nguyen

Septimus had no need to untie Spit Fyre as the dragon had already chewed his way through the rope. They followed Aunt Zelda and Jenna out the side door at the foot of the turret and down to the Palace Gate. Aunt Zelda kept up a brisk pace. Showing a surprising knowledge of the Castle's narrow alleyways and sideslips, she hurtled along. Oncoming pedestrians were taken aback at the sight of the large patchwork tent approaching them at full speed. They flattened themselves against the walls, and, as the tent passed by with the Princess, the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice and a feral-looking boy with bandaged hands - not to mention a dragon - in its wake, people rubbed their eyes in disbelief. — Angie Sage

And I thought, I am in love. For the first time I am in love. And loved. Someone loves me. And I love them. And within me things clicked and whirled like the insides of some gigantic clock, cog against wheel, spring against spiral, tick against tock, and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. I had shown someone what I really was. I had shown someone my truth, my secret. Out there, beyond the walls of the Castle, there was a boy who had seen inside my chrysalis. And I would never be safe again. — Philip Ridley

The big system can be pretty overwhelming. We know that we can't beat them by competing with them. What we can do is build small systems where we live and work that serve our needs as we define us and not as they 're defined for us. The big boys in their shining armor are up there on castle walls hurling their thunderbolts. We're the ants patiently carrying sand a grain at a time from under the castle wall. We work from the bottom up. The knights up there don't see the ants and don't know what we're doing. They'll figure it out only when the wall begins to fall. It takes time and quiet persistence. Always remember this: They fight with money and we resist with time, and they're going to run out of money before we run out of time — Utah Phillips

Your men are watching the border, Torquil is now within the castle walls, and Angus is with Fagan." She raised her brow, "Everything is once again under control. I think we passed the time quite nicely. Wouldn't you say, Laird Sutherland?"
Ruairi chuckled as he fastened his kilt. "I would think so. I have to admit, I've ne'er had so much fun in my study before."
"I would certainly hope not." She ran her hand over the top of his desk. "I dare say, I don't think you'll ever be able to think of your desk the same way again. — Victoria Roberts

We've witnessed a fire sale of American liberties at bargain basement prices, in return for the false promise of more security ... The America being designed right now won't resemble the America we've been defending ... The danger isn't that Big Brother may storm the castle gates. The danger is that Americans don't realize that he is already inside the castle walls. — Wayne LaPierre

It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn't king the best you could be? Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world - huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile? (Handle with care - everything - even the predators.)
Now it was time for him to move out. She wasn't there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.
As for the terrors ahead - for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him - well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white. Right, Leslie?
Right. — Katherine Paterson

Luxembourg was at first a castle, then a fortified city, and eventually a mighty fortress. It didn't become an open city until 1867 when the fortress was partially dismantled. A series of inner and outer walls, or line of palisades, had defended the approaches to the city. Today many of these walls, ruins of towers, and stockades still stand. Within the rock foundation of the city, a network of underground tunnels had been built. — John Dolibois

Let's say I will rip your life apart. Me and my banker friends.
How can he explain that to him? The world is not run from where he thinks. Not from border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from places he has never imagined; from Lisbon, from where the ships with sails of silk drift west and are burned up in the sun. Not from the castle walls, but from counting houses, not be the call of the bugle, but by the click of the abacus, not by the grate and click of the mechanism of the gun but by the scrape of the pen on the page of the promissory note that pays for the gun and the gunsmith and the powder and shot. — Hilary Mantel

Nonethless it had been a castle, with all that this implies: it had had towering walls and turrets, beams as great as trees, arched doorways wide enough for processions to pass through, ceilings so cavernous that owls nested in them. It had had wings and ramparts and thin windows from which to shoot arrows, internal courtyards, banquet rooms, hidden doors, secret passages. It had had a chapel and, in its bowels, a dungeon. It housed sculptures and paintings, tapestries and cushions, carpets and carvings, its fortressed heart had been clad in glit, silver, glass, gold, damask, ivory, ermine. — Sonya Hartnett

A mist still lay all about the walls and floors, hovering like a last breath on the lips of all the sleepers. As he walked through the castle, he marveled at how many lay asleep: the good people, the not-so-good, the young people and the not-so-young, and not one of them stirring. Not one. — Jane Yolen

'The Glass Castle' by Jeannette Walls is the quintessential dysfunctional family. — Sara Shepard

The Lord Commander had given him his orders when they made their camp on the Fist. "You're no fighter. We both know that, boy. If it happens that we're attacked, don't go trying to prove otherwise, you'll just get in the way. You're to send a message. And don't come running to ask what the letter should say. Write it out yourself, and send one bird to Castle Black and another to the Shadow Tower." The Old Bear pointed a gloved finger right in Sam's face. "I don't care if you're so scared you foul your breeches, and I don't care if a thousand wildlings are coming over the walls howling for your blood, you get those birds off, or I swear I'll hunt you through all seven hells and make you damn sorry that you didn't." And Mormont's own raven had bobbed its head up and down and croaked, "Sorry, sorry, sorry. — George R R Martin

The Castle can be rebuilt, in time. It's not the walls that make a lord, it's the man. - Stannis Baratheon — George R R Martin

The walls would have shamed any proper castle, and the ornamental iron spikes along the top looked strangely naked without heads to adorn them. Tyrion pictured how his sister's head might look up there, with tar in her golden hair and flies buzzing in and out of her mouth. Yes, and Jaime must have the spike beside her, he decided. No one must ever come between my brother and my sister. — George R R Martin

It was Fidelma's favourite walk, a winding path by the river in the Castle grounds. The Castle with its turrets and ivied walls was a five-star hotel which attracted celebrities and regulars who came for the fishing and shooting. She could do that walk in her sleep, over the bridge, down three steps, by a sign that read 'Please Close the Gate' and all of a sudden the sound of the river, squeezing its way under the bridge and then bursting out as it opened into a wide sweep, making its way upstream, girdling the small islands that it passed. The sound was like water bursting in childbirth, or so a woman who had had many children once told her, and she remembered it. — Edna O'Brien

Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch,
quitting castle when real days break.


Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?



"Conversation Among the Ruins — Sylvia Plath

The Castle. He'd seen this expression far too many times during their marriage. The Castle was Bryony drawing up the gates and retreating deep into the inner keep. And he'd always hated it. Marriage meant that you shared your goddamn castle. You didn't leave your poor knight of a husband circling the walls trying to find a way in. — Sherry Thomas

I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may be amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, through wearing years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may. — Bram Stoker

If I traveled all my life And I never get to stop and settle down Long as I have you by my side There's a roof above and good walls all around You're my castle, you're my cabin and my instant pleasure dome I need you in my house 'cause you're my home. — Billy Joel

Better to sink with tempests raging o'er
Masts all dismantled and hull gaping wide
Than rest and rot on some unclouded shore
The idle plaything of the listless tide.

Better the grime of battle on the brow,
With grim defeat to crush thy dying hand
Than through long years of peace to tyrant bow
Or dwell captive in a strangers land.

Better the castle with beleaguered gate,
By battle's lightning shivered in a day
Than peaceful walls in pomp of sullen state,
Through centuries sinking to a dull decay.

Better resolve to win thy heart's desire,
And striving bravely, die in the endeavor
Than have the embers of some smothered fire
Lie smouldering in thy saddened soul forever. — Sam Davis

Mary fell asleep early, but her dreams were most unpleasant. She was a mouse running across the kitchen floor, and Elizabeth was a sharp-clawed cat waiting silently to pounce. Then she was a wild deer being chased by famished dogs. Elizabeth was a laughing huntsman in black velvet, urging the ravenous pack onward with a whip. And then Mary was her true self, barefoot and in a bedgown, attempting to escape by night. But the castle was dark and the halls were a winding maze. Mary ran down long shadowy corridors, panting and out of breath, but at every turn she ran into blank walls or locked doors. At last she managed to yank open a door, expecting to breathe the sweet air of freedom. But the way was blocked by laughing faces, all of them growing larger and larger while Mary got smaller and smaller. There was Elizabeth ... and Dudley ... and Cecil ... and Walsingham ... and their loud laughter filled her ears, drowning her pleas like ocean waves. — Margaret George

The Duke has decreed that the Castle is not cold." The gentleman's lips are almost blue from this lack of cold. "And the Duke is right and correct in this as in all things."
... some very beautiful tapestries line the walls, but many of them are also full of holes. Perhaps the Duke has decreed that there are no moths, either. — Christopher Peter Grey

There were stalls nestled around the castle the way the lights were, not in rows but in odd spots, as if the stalls had grown there or alighted on random places like birds. There was one stall with ringing chimes that was set halfway up a ruined wall, so the customers had to climb sliding pieces of slate to get to it. There were more stalls set in the grassy hollows among the stones and nestled into the corners of the walls. One woman had actually turned a ruined wall into her stall, brightly colored jars arranged on the jagged, protruding shards of stone.
All through the fragments of a lost castle lit by magic moved the people of the Goblin Market. There was a man hanging up knives alongside wind chimes, which made dangerous and beautiful music as they rang together in the sea breeze. There was a boy who looked about twelve stirring something in a cauldron with a rich-smelling cloud handing over it, and bark cups ranged along his stall. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head. And shouts ascend on high ... ' Long live Scanderbeg. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Act 3, Scene 2 — William Shakespeare

We had some times, didn't we?'
'We did.'
'Never did build that Glass Castle.'
'No. But we had fun planning it. — Jeannette Walls

Not in San Salvador, he thinks, where the shanty slums press against gleaming high-rises like the thatched huts of medieval peasants pressed against castle walls. Except these castle walls are patrolled by private security guards wielding automatic rifles and machine pistols. And at night, the guards venture out from the castle walls and ride through the villages ...and slaughter the peasants, leaving their bodies at crossroads and in the middle of village squares, and rape and kill women and execute children in front of their parents.

So the survivors will know their place.

It's a killing ground, Art thinks.

El Salvador.

The Savior, my ass. — Don Winslow

And, most vivid of all, there was the dramatic epic of the rats - the scampering army of obscene vermin which had burst forth from the castle three months after the tragedy that doomed it to desertion - the lean, filthy, ravenous army which had swept all before it and devoured fowl, cats, dogs, hogs, sheep, and even two hapless human beings before its fury was spent. — H.P. Lovecraft

He looked up, past her, at the bedroom. Finally, a break to the white - but this wasn't much better. Pink carpeting, princess border along the ceiling, white walls, and a gold canopy bed.
"What," he said, "no Barbie dream castle?"
Layne flushed. "Shut up. — Brigid Kemmerer

Nobody's going to save you. No one's going to cut you down, cut the thorns thick around you. No one's going to storm the castle walls nor kiss awake your birth, climb down your hair, nor mount you onto the white steed. There is no one who will feed the yearning. Face it. You will have to do, do it yourself. — Gloria E. Anzaldua

Beyond this point on the river Cambridge became a kind of miniature Venice, its river water lapping up against the ancient stone of college walls, here mottled and reddened brick, there white stone. Stained, lichened, softened by water light. Here the river became a great north-south tunnel, a gothic castle from the river, flanked by locked iron gates, steps leading nowhere, labyrinths, trapdoors, landing stages where barges had unloaded their freight: crates of fine wines, flour, oats, candles, fine meats carried into the damp darkness of college cellars. — Rebecca Stott

Huge knots of sea-weed hung upon the jagged and pointed stones, trembling in every breath of wind; and the green ivy clung mournfully round the dark and ruined battlements. Behind it rose the ancient castle, its towers roofless, and its massive walls crumbling away, but telling us proudly of its own might and strength, as when, seven hundred years ago, it rang with the clash of arms, or resounded with the noise of feasting and revelry. — Charles Dickens

...I am better Thoughtful Prince than King.
Potential holds appeal since in its castle walls
One is protected from the awful shame
Of failure. — Mike Bartlett

Little John: Look, why don't ya stop moanin' and mopin' around? Just marry the girl.
Robin Hood: Marry her? You don't just walk up to a girl, hand her a bouquet and say, "Hey, remember me? We were kids together. Will you marry me?" No, it just isn't done that way.
Little John: Ah, come one, Robby. Climb the castle walls. Sweep her off her feet. Carry her off in style.
Robin Hood: It's no use, Johnny. I've thought it all out, and it just wouldn't work. Besides, what have I got to offer her?
Little John: Well, for one thing, you can't cook.
Robin Hood: I'm serious Johnny. She's a highborn lady of quality.
Little John: So she's got class. So what?
Robin Hood: I'm an outlaw. That's what. That's no life for a lovely lady. Always on the run. What kind of a future is that? — Me

It was unnerving, to think she was being psychoanalyzed by someone who frequently complained that the castle walls had started bleeding again. — Marissa Meyer

When Dad wasn't telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle. — Jeannette Walls

The sublime beauty was almost hidden withing the castle walls. She believed that the treasured things in life were often hard to find - a pearl in an oyster shell, a kind word in the heat of the moment. — F.C. Malby

i am about castle walls and ivy growing wild — Rebecca Cook

She's taken over one of the castle's towers and painted the walls with images of the philosopher's stone. It's like working inside a Ripley scroll! I've — Deborah Harkness

I wouldn't like to live in a castle now, but I'd enjoy a visit to Restormel in Cornwall in its 13th century prime. It's a circular castle with the rooms built against the outer walls and quite intimate in size. Life there wouldn't follow the pattern of more classic castle design. — Jo Beverley

Each man and woman is like a soldier sent by God to guard some part of the castle of the Universe. And some are in the ramparts and some far deep in the darkness of the walls. But each one must remain faithful to his post and must not go running about, else the castle is in danger from the assaults of Hell. — John Steinbeck