Quotes from The Dark Is Rising

Susan Cooper ·  244 pages

Rating: (45.7K votes)


“The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawson's farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“Too many!' James shouted, and slammed the door behind him.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“It is a burden...(M)ake no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden and this more than any, and you will long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law."
- Susan Cooper ("Merriman" The Dark is Rising)”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“The strange white world lay stroked by silence. No birds sang. The garden was no longer there, in this forested land. Nor were the out-buildings nor the old crumbling walls. There lay only a narrow clearing round the house now, hummocked with unbroken snowdrifts, before the trees began, with a narrow path leading away.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“They walked as old friends walk, without often speaking, sharing the kind of silence that is not so much silence as a kind of still communication.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising



“So it will go,” Merriman said. “He will have a sweet picture of the Dark to attract him, as men so often do, and beside it he will set all the demands of the Light, which are heavy and always will be.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“Expect nothing and fear nothing, here or anywhere. That’s your first lesson.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“every man has a last choice after the first, a chance of forgiveness. It is not too late. Turn. Come to the Light.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“There was something about Christmas Eve, they both felt, that demanded company; one needed somebody to whisper to, during the warm beautiful dream-taut moments between hanging the empty stocking at the end of the bed, and dropping into the cosy oblivion that would flower into the marvel of Christmas morning.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising



“The surface of the iron was irregular, but though it showed no sign of having been polished it was completely smooth—smooth in a way that reminded him of a certain place in the rough stone floor of the kitchen, where all the roughness had been worn away by generations of feet turning to come round the corner from the door.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“For this was Christmas, which had always been a time of magic, to him and to all the world.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“The Herdsman passed, nodding, the bright star Arcturus at his knee; the Bull roared by, bearing the great sun Aldebaran and the small group of the Pleiades singing in small melodic voices, like no voices he had ever heard.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“He was among trees then, spring trees tender with the new matchless green of young leaves, and a clear sun dappling them; summer trees full of leaf, whispering, massive; dark winter firs that fear no master and let no light brighten their woods. He learned the nature of all trees, the particular magics that are in oak and beech and ash.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising



“the sky dark with wheeling birds.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“They are English,” Merriman said. “Quite right,” said Will’s father. “Splendid in adversity, tedious when safe. Never content, in fact. We’re an odd lot.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“the house and everyone in it lay in a sleep that would not be broken.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


“He was woken by music. It beckoned him, lilting and insistent; delicate music, played by delicate instruments that he could not identify, with one rippling, bell-like phrase running through it in a gold thread of delight. There was in this music so much of the deepest enchantment of all his dreams and imaginings that he woke smiling in pure happiness at the sound.”
― Susan Cooper, quote from The Dark Is Rising


About the author

Susan Cooper
Born place: in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, The United Kingdom
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