Maitland Quotes & Sayings

Hope is a beautiful lie and it requires talent to create it for others. — Karen Maitland

I got fascinated by the silence and by what happens when you venture out in that enormous emptiness — Sarah Maitland

Based on the timing, the circumstances. In July 1970, William Maitland vanished from the face of the earth. In August of the same year, we heard the first reports of a foreign pilot flying for the enemy. Running weapons and gold. — Tess Gerritsen

You are one of those courageous people who want to dare to live; and to do so believe you have to explore the depths of yourself, undistracted and unprotected by social conventions and norms. — Sara Maitland

I believe that the great stretches of forests in northern Europe, with their constant seasonal changes, their restricted views, their astonish biological diversity, their secret gifts and perils and the knowledge that you have to go through them to get anywhere else, created the themes and ethics of the fairy tales we know best. There are secrets, hidden identities, cunning disguises; there are rhythms of change like the changes of the seasons; there are characters, both human and animal, whose assistance can be earned or spurned; and there is
over and over again
the journey or quest, which leads first to knowledge and then to happiness. The forest is the place of trial in fairy stories, both dangerous and exciting. Coming to terms with the forest, surviving its terrors, utilising its gifts and gaining its help is the way to 'happy ever after. — Sara Maitland

Tess retreated toward the back of the room. How could Imogen have done this to all of them? But she knew the answer as well as she knew the question. Imogen had eloped because, even if Draven Maitland did not love Imogen the way Romeo loved Juliet, Imogen herself was every bit as passionate as the Shakespearean heroine. More, perhaps. She had simply reached out and taken what she wanted. She was no passive observer. Although, Tess reminded herself, naturally Imogen will be a great deal happier and longer-lived than Juliet. — Eloisa James

He didn't care that he'd be punished. Punishments always came to an end eventually. [Felix] — Karen Maitland

The embryological record, as it is usually presented to us, is both imperfect and misleading. It may be compared to an ancient manuscript, with many of the sheets lost, others displaced, and with spurious passages interpolated by a later hand ... Like the scholar with his manuscript, the embryologist has by a process of careful and critical examination to determine where the gaps are present, to detect the later insertions, and to place in order what has been misplaced. — Francis Maitland Balfour

I was about to add it was as likely a friendship as Lucifer and the Archangel Michael sharing a jug of ale, but I stopped myself. [Vincent] — Karen Maitland

The essential matter of history is not what happened but what people thought or said about it. — Frederic William Maitland

Maybe that is what Hell is, being trapped for ever in your own nightmares and never being able to wake. [Gisa] — Karen Maitland

He shrugged. "I was ... thinking."
"About what?"
"The fires of purgatory."
She had to sit down. He wasn't making any sense now. "What does that mean?" she asked.
"Patrick told me he would walk through the fires of purgatory if he had to in order to please his wife."
She went over to the bed and sat down on the side. "And?" she prodded when he didn't continue.
He stripped out of his clothing and walked over to her. He pulled her to her feet and stared down to her.
"And I have only just realized I would do the same for you. — Julie Garwood

People sense that our reaction to phenomena such as epidemics or religious war is not that different to how we reacted to plagues or to battles a millennia ago. — Karen Maitland

In fact they were initially sublimely indifferent to politics altogether, since they believed the world was going to end soon and that what mattered was preparing oneself for the immediate return of the Lord Jesus and an apocalyptic final judgement. Their core values focused around a personal (interior) relationship with God and holiness, — Sara Maitland

That is the art of being a good librarian. You must always be able to lay hands on anything your master requires. Keep everything, chiot, throw away nothing, however insignificant or old. You never know when it might be needed. "The cornerstone which the builders rejected", that is what an ancient book is, Vincent, a cornerstone. Many might consider it worthless, but one day it may prove to be the very stone upon which the whole house stands. Words, Vincent, always hoard the written words as if they were royal jewels. [Gaspard] — Karen Maitland

The fear-and-projection strategy will turn round and bite back: you will be the sad, mad, bad person, and this can only make a difficult situation very much worse. Additionally, since - as you will see - there is a good deal of evidence that none of these worries are actually true, people pursuing this route will be obliged to cut themselves off from many ways of knowing about the actual world in which they are living. This itself may well prove isolating: one of the problems with projected fears is that they do tend to make the scary thing or event more likely, rather than less likely, to occur. — Sara Maitland

Reckon it's best if you don't have anyone you care about; then it can't hurt you. Don't have to be afraid of losing someone if you no one to lose. — Karen Maitland

But, then again, the actions of the most insignificant men or women can be as a single raindrop that rolls a pebble that dislodges a clod that tumbles a rock and, before you know it, the whole mountainside has crashed down, sweeping palaces and pigsties, princes and paupers into the sea. So maybe there are demons at work, even in the smallest mischief — Karen Maitland

I'd love to own Newstead, partly because it belonged to Lord Byron, but also to try to uncover what dark secrets really lie beneath. — Karen Maitland

The day that I left my home, I had prayed that my children would forget me. I wanted to spare them the pain of remembering. But that night, as I crouched in the white mist, waiting, I knew more than anything that I wanted them to remember, I wanted desperately to go on living in someone's memory. If we are not remembered, we are more than dead, for it is as if we had never lived. — Karen Maitland

He will not tell them that it lives, that it escaped them, That will be his treasured secret. — Karen Maitland

There is no higher soul than that of man and it is from man that the stone of eternal life must be drawn. Therefore the book that contains the knowledge of that stone must be wrapped in human flesh. No matter how sick a man might be, no matter what his deformities, his healing lies within these pages. [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

Chapter One: Lady Maitland England, 1793 The Earl of Warren let his mind drift as his younger sister rambled on in a cheerful voice. Wilhelmina - or Minette, as everyone called her - could carry on a conversation for hours, no matter if the other person participated in the exchange. He had the questionable fortune to be sharing a carriage with her on a day-long journey to a friend's home in Hertfordshire. "Will we be there soon?" Minette perched on the edge of her seat, craning to look out the window. — Annabel Joseph

Now fairy stories are at risk too, like the forests. Padraic Column has suggested that artificial lighting dealt them a mortal wound: when people could read and be productive after dark, something fundamental changed, and there was no longer need or space for the ancient oral tradition. The stories were often confined to books, which makes the text static, and they were handed over to children. — Sara Maitland

Don't you have faith in your Saviour that He will raise you to life again? (...) Isn't that what you teach those grieving widows and bereft parents? (...) But you don't really believe that. You see nothing beyond the grave, so you are determined never to enter it. You want eternal life for yourself now, here in the flesh. You want to remain just as you are now, while all around you wither and die. (...) You crave the power that will come only when you can outlive them all. [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

Curiosity was always my weakness and, once more, it got the better of me. [Vincent] — Karen Maitland

For a moment there was an expression of greedy excitement in his eyes, like you see in the eyes of men when they are looking at woman who arouses their lust. — Karen Maitland

You know that all things are composed of four elements. Tell me their qualities", he orders, his smile suddenly vanished. "Fire is hot a dry. Air is dry and moist. Water cold and moist. Earth cold and dry." [Gisa] — Karen Maitland

The hand of a man hanged on the gallows has healing powers. If it be stroked across a sore, tumour or goitre, the evil shall pass to the dead man and the sick will be cured. If a woman be barren she should go to a gibbet at night, climb up and reach through the bars and draw the corpse's hand across her womb three or seven times and her curse will leave her. Lincoln — Karen Maitland

Why it is that animals, instead of developing in a simple and straightforward way, undergo in the course of their growth a series of complicated changes, during which they often acquire organs which have no function, and which, after remaining visible for a short time, disappear without leaving a trace ... To the Darwinian, the explanation of such facts is obvious. The stage when the tadpole breathes by gills is a repetition of the stage when the ancestors of the frog had not advanced in the scale of development beyond a fish. — Francis Maitland Balfour

Of course we also live in a world of great beauty, sacrificial and passionate love, tenderness, prosperity, courage and joy. But quite a lot of all that seems to happen regardless of the paradigm and the high thoughts of philosophy. It has always happened. It is precisely because it has always happened that we go on wrestling with these issues in the hope that it can happen more often and for more people. — Sara Maitland

You can have a failed quest, but you can't have an achieved quest and no reward. — Sara Maitland

We had taken her for granted until she was no longer there, like an ancient tree you don't truly see until it is felled, and then only from the empty space in the sky do you suddenly grasp its stature. — Karen Maitland

I have been wronged by so many men that I find it hard to trust anyone and see only greed and malice in every heart. [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

Giovanni's behavior had changed dramatically since he had opened that crate. He felt haunted. [After meeting the portrait of Botticelli's Bastard] — Stephen Maitland-Lewis

Wilberforce did not believe in either evolution or extinction.
Owen believed in extinction but not evolution.
Lamarck believed in evolution but not extinction.
Darwin believed in evolution and extinction.
All four of them believed in God. — Sara Maitland

Miracles are like murders. After the first one, each becomes easier than the last for, with each success, the miracle-worker's certainty in himself becomes stronger. — Karen Maitland

It is not simply that we share with each other a common humanity, but that individually we have no humanity without each other. — Sara Maitland

We couldn't bring the sheep back to life, so there was nothing for it but to eat the evidence. — Karen Maitland

Edah Amsellah - The Tears of the Dragon — Karen Maitland

No one had Ramsey's patience, Brodick thought to himself. Gideon obviously didn't know his laird well, for if he did, he would have known that under that thin layer of civility and diplomacy beat the heart of a savage warrior whose temper put Brodick's to shame. Unlike Brodick, Ramsey was slow to ignite, but once he had reached his limit or had been prodded too far, his reaction was explosive and most impressive. He could be far more brutal than Brodick, and perhaps that was one of the reasons they had become such good friends. They trusted each other. Aye, Brodick trusted and admired Ramsey as much as he trusted and admired the man who had trained them to be leaders, Iain Maitland. — Julie Garwood

If they don't utter the words, it cannot happen. But words, once spoken, seal a man or maid for life or death. [Gisa] — Karen Maitland

His words burn like acid. — Karen Maitland

occasionally or alternately I should not complain, — Frederick Lewis Maitland

Forests to the [early] Northern European peoples were dangerous and generous, domestic and wild, beautiful and terrible. And the forests were the terrain out of which fairy stories, one of our earliest and most vital cultural forms, evolved. The mysterious secrets and silences, gifts and perils of the forest are both the background to and source of these tales ...
Forests are places where a person can get lost and also hide
and losing and hiding, of things and people, are central to European fairy stories in ways that are not true of similar stories in different geographies. Landscape informs the collective imagination as much as or more than it forms the individual psyche and its imagination, but this dimension is not something to which we always pay enough attention. — Sara Maitland

If anyone fears theft, let him scatter caraway seeds among those things of value and if a thief should try to steal them he shall be held in that place. Likewise, if a woman fears her husband may stray she should sew caraway seeds into his clothes, so that no other woman may steal him away from her. Mistress — Karen Maitland

In the Middle Ages, I think the French kings murdered slightly fewer of their family members than the English kings, though I haven't actually counted the heads. — Karen Maitland

Sometimes mercy is not a kindness and pity is not love. — Karen Maitland

No one gets away with committting murder on the premises."
"No exceptions?" she asked.
His smile was as cold as his eyes. "One exception."
"You," she said.
"Me."
She took a short, tight breath.
"But you didn't kill Gloria Maitland," she said.
"What makes you so sure I didn't murder her?"
"You're a magician. You would have done a better job of it. — Amanda Quick

In 1255, Louis IX of France presented an elephant to Henry III of England to add to the menagerie of exotic animals he kept in the Tower of London. — Karen Maitland

The woman never used one word when she could torment ten. — Karen Maitland

Both the vessel and the receiver must be chosen carefully according to the nature of the ting to be distilled. — Karen Maitland

Besides, I'm not sure they let ferrets into Heaven and I'd miss old Mavet. — Karen Maitland

I'd believed mine was the greatest of all the arts, the noblest of all the lies, the creation of hope. I thought hope could overcome everything, but I was wrong. Hope cannot overcome truth. Hope and truth cannot co-exist. Truth destroys hope. The most savage cruelties man inflicts on man are committed in the pursuit of truth. My last lie had been the most honest, the most honorable of them all, for there is an art greater even than the creation of hope. The greatest art of all is the destruction of truth. — Karen Maitland

They were just the ordinary sounds of of people beginning their day, silly raucous, discordant, but they were the most beautiful sounds on earth, the sounds of living people. — Karen Maitland

They all wait impatiently for the blessed cloak of darkness to cover their wretched little deeds, but the sun will not be hurried by the whims of men. — Karen Maitland

You will sleep till the stars fall from the heavens ans the seas turn into dust. [Father Arthmael] — Karen Maitland

My father taught me to be independent and cocky and free thinking, but he could not stand it if I disagreed with him. — Sara Maitland

There was a man with the sun in the place of his head and a woman with the moon instead of a face. — Karen Maitland

King John won't need any persuading that the French have a hand in this. From what I've heard, if a bean gives him a bellyache he swears it was a French one. — Karen Maitland

On the other hand, curiosity was eating me up, and curiosity is a demon who will not relinqish its hold on you until its voracious appetite has been satisfied. — Karen Maitland

The English king's power was curbed by Parliament, though that wasn't always a good thing, as politicians often behave no better than monarchs - there are just more of them. — Karen Maitland

The earth makes creatures well again. When you are sick you are put to bed, and when you are very sick, you are put into the earth to make you well. — Karen Maitland

The hunger and thirst for knowledge, the keen delight in the chase, the good humored willingness to admit that the scent was false, the eager desire to get on with the work, the cheerful resolution to go back and begin again, the broad good sense, the unaffected modesty, the imperturbable temper, the gratitude for any little help that was given - all these will remain in my memory though I cannot paint them for others. — Frederic William Maitland

The essence of the moon, gathered by a virgin, added to the death of innocence. [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

We forget how bawdy and brutal the Middle Ages were. — Karen Maitland

I truly believed that the creation of hope was the greatest of all the arts, the noblest of all the lies. — Karen Maitland

We think we are unique, special and deserving of happiness, but we are terrified of being alone. — Sara Maitland

there is an interior dimension to silence, a sort of stillness of heart and mind which is not a void but a rich space. — Sara Maitland

Yet the ink on the page was ancient, faded. (...) Fresh iron-gall ink was as black as Beelzebub's beards. — Karen Maitland

Art is an artificial organization of experience ... — Sara Maitland

On the shelves of her uncle's shop a jar contains the powdered skull of a suicide, a well-known cure for the falling sickness. — Karen Maitland

God's hand can be seen in any occurrence for those who are determined to find it there, but then again, so can the devil's — Karen Maitland

The embryological record is almost always abbreviated in accordance with the tendency of nature (to be explained on the principle of survival of the fittest) to attain her needs by the easiest means. — Francis Maitland Balfour

Sometimes I feared I'd turn into a bat myself, stuck up there night and day, scrathing away. [Vincent] — Karen Maitland

Being alone in our present society raises an important question about identity and well-being. — Sara Maitland

I miss you terribly. You see, you always talk about getting cure of our romance, and I did my best to help! But now you have me definitely and hopelessly 'contaminated' to the extent that I am sick at heart. Strangeley, I do not want to be cured! I love you completely. — Leslie Maitland

If you tell people enough times that they are unhappy, incomplete, possibly insane and definitely selfish there is bound to come a grey morning when they wake up with the beginning of a nasty cold and wonder if they are lonely rather than simply "alone." — Sara Maitland

How long have I been here? I haven't been able to tell day from night with eyes covered." [Vincent]
"Nor could you anyway, in here. There are no windows and the walls are so thick you cannot hear the church bells. It was built so that the one who prayed here would not be aware of the passage of time or the world outside. When we reach into the higher planes, we pass beyond time. Only the body is governed by time, but that too, I will change". [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

A book about courage-a long string of tiny courageous steps. It is also about hope and faith and love. It is modest, careful and joyous. I do not see how any attentive reader could fail to be touched, awed and encouraged." Sara Maitland, Author — Alice Warrender

[Georg Cantor was the first to prove that there could be a series of infinities; that infinities come in an infinite number of sizes.] Thus Cantor's Absolute is a perfect image for what we experience of God. When I speak of a Big Enough God I am not merely thinking of an Infinite God, but the God of infinities, the Absolute, which either chooses to reveal itself or remains veiled in mystery. Modern mathematics does begin to feel like the language that God talks. — Sara Maitland

There was a new king and his name was pestilence. And he had created a new law - thou shalt do anything to survive. — Karen Maitland

I gazed back up the dome of the heavens painted on the ceiling above. It was only then that I noticed somethings else in the painted sky, directly above the bed. The sun, moon and stars were positioned in swirls around some object in the centre, like angels clustered round the throne of God. But this was no throne, nor was it God. [Vincent] — Karen Maitland

If I had killed someone, it would certainly have come as no surprise to him, since he was always telling I'd end my days on the gallows. [Vincent] — Karen Maitland

You have already excommunicated half the village because they will not pay their tithes. So why wouldn't they come to us? Can you excommunicate them twice over? As for the sick, most are here because the Mother Church in her great charity has already damned them and driven them out. The churches are emptier than a pauper's purse and little wonder, for men get more solace from the alewives than from their priests. More stand now outside your church than within it. What difference does it make if you forbid them burial in your churchyard, since they cannot afford the soul-scot you charge them to be buried there? Those who still look to God make their prayers far away from the church, where the air is sweeter and their voices are not smothered beneath your hypocrisy and greed. — Karen Maitland

His gaze was fixed so intently on me that, though I had been determined to look him in the eye as his equal, I found myself having to stare down at the corner of the table in order to stammer out a word. — Karen Maitland

Why do mortals think that suffering is a coin with which they can buy justice or salvation? ... life is a steal if you are a talented thief, and if you are not, then you may suffer all you please but if will buy you nothing but pain. — Karen Maitland

Mortals are strange creatures; they cling to life even when that life is nothing but pain and misery, yet they will throw away their lives for a word, an idea, even a flag. Wolves piss to mark their territory. Smell the stench of another pack and wolves will quietly slink away. Why risk a fight when it might maim or kill you? But humans will slash and slaughter in their thousands to plant their little piece of cloth on a hill or hang it from a battlement. — Karen Maitland

Even when you're terrified, or because fear sharpens the mind, you get flashes of blinding comprehension. [Vincent] — Karen Maitland

You are the sacred consummation of the sun and the moon and the shadow and you will become the poison of death. [Sylvian] — Karen Maitland

Gardening gave me a way to work with silence; not "in silence" but "with silence" - it was a silent creativity. — Sara Maitland

Some of what you see, my child, may make you affraid, revolted even, but you must remember that all life is born of corruption. The reborn can rise only from death and decay. Resurrection springs only from the tomb. — Karen Maitland

We should always be aware that what now lies in the past once lay in the future. — Frederic William Maitland

You've heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in a story-teller's tale. — Karen Maitland

It was a mark of just how saintly I was that I hand't smothered him to death long ago. [Vincent] — Karen Maitland

Art forms render ideas accessible to readers who could not receive those insights in any other format. — Sara Maitland

A child's fingernails should never be cut in the first year. The mother must bite them off or he'll become a thief. But when they are first cut at a year old, they must be buried under an ash tree so that witches can't take them and cause the child harm. Lincoln — Karen Maitland

Pay heed, my darlings, and always take the greatest care over the company you keep in life: if death strikes you without warning, you may be stuck with them til the moon turns to blood and wouldn't that be a torment? — Karen Maitland

Et moriendo docebo - I will teach you how to die. — Karen Maitland

People are willing to do the most appalling things to another person for the sake of imposing a religious belief. — Karen Maitland