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

He saw now that [compassion] was the very first necessity, always and everywhere, and should flow between all men, always and everywhere. Men lived with their nearest and dearest and knew little of them, and strangers passing by in the street were as impersonal as trees walking, and all the while there was this deep affinity, for all men suffered. — Elizabeth Goudge

In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins. — Elizabeth Goudge

Knyghtwood, though the gales had stripped away most of its leaves, had not lost its fascination for Ben and the twins. Indeed, its spell seemed deeper than before. The trees all had faces now, the twins said, and fingers and toes. They dug their toes in hard when the wind blew, and stretched up their arms to the sky, and pulled down the clouds with their long, grey fingers, and made purple cloaks out of them that they wrapped about their bare limbs when the night fell coldly. — Elizabeth Goudge

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

What we are made to do we seldom do well, what we do of our own choice we make a success of for very pride. — 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

You don't have to know just what people are doing and feeling to be of assistance to them. Your own life seems to you like a very small lighted room, with great darkness all around it, and you can't see out into the darkness and know what is happening there. But light and warmth from your room can go out into the darkness if you don't have the windows selfishly curtained, keep a brave fire burning, and light all the happy candles you can. — Elizabeth Goudge

Isaac's humility did not discriminate between man and man and scarcely between man and watch. In his thought men were much like their watches. The passage of time was marked as clearly upon a man's face as upon that of his watch and the marvelous mechanism of his body could be as cruelly disturbed by evil hazards. The outer case varied, gunmetal or gold, carter's corduroy or bishop's broadcloth, but the tick of the pulse was the same, the beating of life that gave such a heartbreaking illusion of eternity. — Elizabeth Goudge

We all of us need to be toppled off the throne of self, my dear," he said. "Perched up there the tears of others are never upon our own cheek. — Elizabeth Goudge

The sun is still there ... even if clouds drift over it. Once you have experienced the reality of sunshine you may weep, but you will never feel ice about your heart again. — Elizabeth Goudge

For she had discovered that as well as the evil web there was another. This too bound spirits together, but not in a tangle, it was a patterned web and one could see the silver pattern when the sun shone upon it. It seemed much frailer than the dark tangle, that had a hideous strength, but it might not be so always, not in the final reckoning. — 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

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 moments of exaltation one expressed sentiments that outstripped one's spiritual capabilities by a vast span; and she knew well that unless God is sought for Himself alone, with a selflessness of which she was at present incapable, He is not to be found. — 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

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

The God who had thrust him through in the darkness with probings of dread and shame was the same God who now held out the sword and shield. — Elizabeth Goudge

He had seen that look in so many eyes lately, not the fear of death but the fear of life. Is it like this? Is it true that it's like this? Oh God, if it's like this what do we do? He had instantly pulled himself together to grapple with her fear.
"It's all right, Prunella," he had said a little wildly. "I tell you it's all right. Life's not this little bit of existence you're plodding through now, it's the whole thing, all that is. It's the breath of God, words that he spoke, a song, a stream of white light that goes back to him again. Life is good ... Life is fine and grand, and we should love it to the depths of our souls. — Elizabeth Goudge

Because of course she had known she must go. She always did the thing because in obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root. — 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

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

Imagine God and Man set down together to play that game of chess that we call life. The one player is a master, the other a bungling amateur, so the outcome of the game cannot be in question. The amateur has free will, he does what he pleases, for it was he who chose to set up his will against that of the master in the first place; he throws the whole board into confusion time and again and by his foolishness delays the orderly ending of it all for countless generations, but every stupid move of his is dealt with by a masterly counterstroke, and slowly but inexorably the game sweeps on to the master's victory. But, mind you, the game could not move on at all without the full complement of pieces; Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knights, Pawns; the master does not lose sight of a single one of them. — Elizabeth Goudge

I think God creates what one might call spiritual families, people who may or may not be physically related to each other, but who will travel together the whole of the way. And it's a long way. — Elizabeth Goudge

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

The real comfort was to have one's sins and weaknesses not explained away but understood and shared. John's identification of himself with Michael in so much was what he needed. He found strength in it ... It struck him that it can be as much by our weakness as by our virtue that we can serve each other — 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

It takes a happy marriage to make light of small things. — 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

Robin: When you do marry, who will you marry?
Maria: I have not quite decided yet, but I think I shall marry a boy I knew in London.
Robin(yells): What? Marry some mincing nincompoop of a Londoner with silk stockings and a pomade in his hair and face like a Cheshire cheese? You dare do such a thing! You - Maria - if you marry a London man I'll wring his neck! ( ... ) I'll not only wring his neck, I'll wring everybody's necks, and I'll go right away out of the valley, over the hills to the town where my father came from, and I won't ever come back here again. So there!
( ... )
Maria: Why don't you want me to marry that London boy?
Robin(shouting): Because you are going to marry me. Do you hear, Maria? You are going to marry me. — Elizabeth Goudge

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

Cowardice more than any other failing demands a ruthless paying of the price from those who give it hospitality. — 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

Civilization ... is another word for respect for life. One can't have too much respect for a loveliness that's brittle as spun glass. — Elizabeth Goudge

I loathe, detest, hate and abominate the block, the gibbet, the rack, the pillory and the faggots with equal passion," said the old man vehemently. "Not only are they devilishly cruel but they are not even common sense. They do not lesson the evil in the world, they increase it, by making those who handle these cruelties as wicked as those who suffer them. No, I'm wrong, more wicked, for there is always some expiation made in the endurance of suffering and none at all in the infliction of it. — Elizabeth Goudge

Nothing mitigated failure except the knowledge that it did not matter. — 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

The scent of a flower is a very close and intimate thing, she thought. It can seem to be a part of your body and blood. — Elizabeth Goudge

But a hare, now, that is a different thing altogether. A hare is not a pet but a person. Hares are clever and brave and loving, and they have fairy blood in them. It's a grand thing to have a hare for a friend. — Elizabeth Goudge

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

She knew little about herself and consequently little about others. — 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

Meanwhile Canon Leigh in his study did not know what on earth he ought to do; and when he remembered that he had four daughters who each of them might have five love affairs, making twenty all told, before he got them safely steered into the harbor of matrimony
though even then there might be upsets in the harbor
he came out in a cold sweat. He spent a bad night and in the cold light of dawn sat down and penned a note to Mistress Flowerdew, asking that he might wait upon her and receive her inestimable advice upon a matter of overwhelming importance. — 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

Nothing is ever finished and done with in this world. You may think a seed was finished and done with when it falls like a dead thing into the earth; but when it puts forth leaves and flowers next spring you see your mistake. — 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

Love. The only indestructible thing. The only wealth and the only reality. The only survival. At the end of it all there was nothing else. — 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

In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character. — 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

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

She had the courage that accepts instantly, without recoil, and the reverence in love that towards man is without possessiveness and towards God without rebellion — Elizabeth Goudge

He knocked his pipe out. His paper rustled to the floor and his spectacles slid own his nose. His hands, red and shiny, lay relaxed on his knee. He abandoned himself to the quietness and the warmth of sun and fire. Autumn was a strange paradoxical time of the year. It was the season when he was happiest and yet it was the season when he was most vulnerable and most aware, and that was not always a happiness. Yet he liked autumn. — Elizabeth Goudge

The fortunate, she thought, and she counted herself fortunate, should not insulate themselves in their good fortune. If they could do nothing else they could pray, and she prayed as she was able, grieving over the childishness of her prayer but trying to make it real to herself by letting the travail of her mind bring forth one concrete fact at a time to pray about; one child in danger, some particular man in darkness, some particular prisoner facing the world again with fear and shame; God knew who they were even if she did not. — Elizabeth Goudge

This blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings. — Elizabeth Goudge

I had not known before that love is obedience. You want to love, and you can't, and you hate yourself because you can't, and all the time love is not some marvelous thing that you feel but some hard thing that you do. And this in a way is easier because with God's help you can command your will when you can't command your feelings. With us, feelings seem to be important, but He doesn't appear to agree with us. — Elizabeth Goudge

Lovely phrases had lit candles in her mind, one after the other, till she felt intoxicated with the brightness. — 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

The man opposite, divided between anger and relief at the stripping away of his defenses, his nerves jangling, was taken utterly aback by the extraordinary beauty of Hilary's eyes without their glasses, by their keen, straight glance, by the enveloping warmth of his utterly happy yet rather deprecating smile. The immense power of his goodwill, together with his personal humility, made a sudden unexpected appeal that got right under Malony's guard before he knew where he was. He wasn't out to do you good, this chap - he didn't think enough of himself for that - he was simply out to jog along beside you for a little, and pass the time of day, knowing you were down on your luck, and thinking a bit of companionship might not come amiss. — Elizabeth Goudge

It was not the size of things that mattered but their perfection, it was not what one had that was important, but what one made. — 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

Better to struggle through life with a broken wing than have no wings at all. — Elizabeth Goudge

Fear is a lonely thing. Even those who love us best cannot get close to us when we are afraid. — Elizabeth Goudge

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

She knew that pleasure, to be pleasure, must come to an end. — Elizabeth Goudge

The snake charmer should not touch the serpents before his child's eyes, knowing that the child will try to imitate him in all things. — Eileen Goudge

Perhaps faith is hard to come by when your're alone, Harriet," he said. "Until now I've been alone."
"We're never alone," said Harriet. "That's the mistake so many make. There'd be less fear if folk knew how little alone they are. — 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

I don't fly to the classics for comfort, as Giles does. I'm too frivolous. Worthy people always read the classics when things are difficult. — Elizabeth Goudge

She realized with deep respect that this woman had always done what she had to do and faced what she had to face. If many of her fears and burdens would have seemed unreal to another woman, there was nothing unreal about her courage. — Elizabeth Goudge

He supposed he was one of those unfortunates born with a great capacity for suffering ... He opened his eyes a moment and they were dark with fear, for only one race was run as yet and there might be many others ... Then his newborn courage came back to him and he accepted his suffering as the price he must pay for the gift of creation that was his. And suffering, he had discovered, could be the gateway to renewal, than which no more glorious experience can be man's on earth. — Elizabeth Goudge

There was a happy chirping in the cloakroom as the children put on their walking shoes. Mary, standing at the door, thought they might have been sparrows, so loud was the chirping and so fulfilled with satisfaction. Perhaps the purpose of sparrows, as of children let out of school, was just to remark loudly and with repetition that in spite of any appearance to the contrary everything is quite all right. — 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

Acting a part is not always synonymous with lying; it is far often the best way of serving the truth. It is more truthful to act what we should feel if the community is to be well served rather than behave as we actually do feel in our selfish private feelings. — Elizabeth Goudge

She lived too close to despair to have any strength left for self-knowledge. She might have been able to acknowledge herself unloved but to know herself unloving was beyond her strength. — 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

Being ill makes you feel what well people call sentimental, but what you feel is nonetheless genuine whatever they call it. — Elizabeth Goudge

Nothing he could do or say would bridge the gulf because there was nothing here to appeal to. There was nothing here but anger and fear, things in themselves entirely sterile. Divorced from the love of righteousness, the fear of God, they were nothing. There was nothing here. He had not realized before the ghastly evil of negation. He had seldom felt such evil. Nothingness was a bottomless pit... — 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

Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing. — 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 had left a certain mode of life and chosen another and between that life and this a river ran, as impassable as the river of death. And now he wanted to get back madly, desperately, but he couldn't, not even though he knew that the river was nothing but the inhibitions of his own mind ... A normal man who has lived utterly alone for a long time ceases to be normal. A solitary who has cut himself off from human contact comes to have a terror of his fellow humans. A coward who had abandoned all responsibility is afraid to shoulder it again. A failure cannot trust to success. A sufferer who has been broken by life dare not be friends with it again ... It was only his own mind that kept him back but a man's mind can be his greatest friend or his greatest enemy, according as it serves or binds his will, and his was his enemy. Its terrors controlled him. He was bound hand and foot by his own weakness. It was no use. He was a good as dead. I cannot get back. — Elizabeth Goudge

There are some people who don't realize what it is they are doing to others until they are paid back in their own coin. But those are not the worst. The worst are those whose unkindness is calculated. — Elizabeth Goudge

Polly came stepping very demurely down the stairs, but the demureness emphasized the gaiety of the crimson ribbons on her bonnet and the sparkle in her eyes, and as she came the bells began to ring. Isaac opened the front door and light and air and music poured in, broke against Emma like bright water against a dark rock, flowed around her, joined behind her, and to Isaac's fancy filled the house. "Shut the door, Isaac," said Emma sharply from the pavement. Isaac did so and then leaned against it chuckling. "Too late, Emma," he said. "It's in. — 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

Joy being of God was a living thing, a fountain not a cistern, one of those divine things that are possessed only as they overflow and flow away, and not easily come by because it must break into human life through the hard crust of sin and contingency. Joy came now here, now there, was held and escaped. — Elizabeth Goudge

So when it happened suddenly this was how it happened. She had often wondered. But the magazine stories had got it all wrong. It was not an affair of sudden heartbeats, and hot and cold flushes, as though one were going to have influenza, it was just this quiet recognition. But in the approach of love there must be a sharpness, for that moment of beauty that had come down like a sword had cut her life in two. When she crossed the bridge she had crossed from her girlhood to womanhood. — 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