“Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“The most expensive part of building is the mistakes.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“She wanted to say 'I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage'...”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended. ”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“The duck swallows the worm, the fox kills the duck, the men shoot the fox, and the devil hunts the men.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“I imagined it. I wrote it. But I guess I never thought I'd see it.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“You never know," Jack said speculatively. "There may come a time when savages like William Hamleigh aren't in power; when the laws protect the ordinary people instead of enslaving them; when the king makes peace instead of war. Think of that - a time when towns in England don't need walls!”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“Proportion is the heart of beauty.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“When things are simple, fewer mistakes are made. The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“But the lesson of Abraham's story is that God demands the best we have to offer, that which is most precious to us.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“She was unique: there was something abnormal about her, and it was that abnormal something that made her magnetic.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“She looked at his young face, so full of concern and tenderness; and she remembered why she had run away from everyone else and sought solitude here. She yearned to kiss him, and she saw the answering longing in his eyes. Every fiber of her body told her to throw herself into his arms, but she knew what she had to do. She wanted to say, I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage; but instead she said: "I think I'm going to marry Alfred.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“Knotty theological questions are the least worrying of problems to me. Why? Because they will be resolved in the hereafter, and meanwhile they can be safely shelved.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“When you're thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“Don't look so sad," she said. Her eyes were full of tears.
"I can't help it," he said. "I am sad."
"I'm sorry I've made you so unhappy."
"Don't be sorry for that. Be sorry that you made me so happy. That's what hurts, woman. That you made me so happy.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“Hard work should be rewarded by good food.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“There was a long moment of silence. Philip was holding his breath. When Remigius looked up again, his face was wet with tears. "Yes , please, Father," he said. "I want to come home."
Philip felt a glow of joy. "Come on, then," he said. "Get on my horse."
Remigius looked flabbergasted.
Jonathan said: "Father! What are you doing?"
Philip said to Remigius: "Go on, do as I say."
Jonathan was horified, "but Ftaher, how will you travel?"
"I'll walk," Philip said happily. "One of us must."
"Let Remigius walk!" Jonathan said in a tone of outrage.
"Let him ride," Philip said, "He's pleased God today."
"What about you? Haven't you pleased God more than Remigius?"
"Jesus said there's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people," Philip countered. "Don't you remember the parable of the prodigal son? When he came home, his father killed the fatted calf. The angels are rejoicing over Remigius's tears. The least I can do is give him my horse.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“It was an odd thing to do, to stand in a street in the hope of seeing someone who hardly knew him, but he did not want to move.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“What you’re doing is wrong,” he said. “I mean evil. To give up happiness like this is like throwing jewels into the ocean. It’s far worse than any sin.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“It's like knowing your way through the forest. You don't keep the whole forest in your mind, but wherever you are, you know where to go next.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“He had been granted his life's wish-but conditionally.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“I’ve worked with volunteers before,” he began. “It’s important not to… not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don’t necessarily take that attitude. They feel they’re working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“In both cases, weakness and scruples had defeated strength and ruthlessness.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“He had seen - clever, clever boy that he was - that she could not be won by wooing; and he had approached her sidelong, as a friend rather than a lover, meeting her in the woods and telling her stories and making her love him without her noticing.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“He was the worst kind of Christian, Philip realized: he embraced all of the negatives, enforced every proscription, insisted on all forms of denial, and demanded strict punishment for every offence; yet he ignored all the compassion of Christianity, denied its mercy, flagrantly disobeyed its ethic of love, and openly flouted the gentle laws of Jesus.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett
Born place: in Cardiff, The United Kingdom
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“The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. The great philosophers have always been able to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions - simple once they are stated, vastly difficult before. If we are to follow them we too must be childishly simple in our questions - and maturely wise in our replies.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, quote from How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
“Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize 'The stars are words' and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it’s all in my mind.”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from Lonesome Traveler
“No sooner had he finished with a case than another two or three appeared in its place. What was the name of that creature? The Hydra, was it? That was what he was fighting. Every time he cut off a head, more popped into his in-tray. Coming back from a holiday was a nightmare. And now they were giving him rocks to push up hills as well.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses
“The mission sat in a converted store front on the corner of a medium-busy street. There was a small crowd gathered in front - no real surprise, since they gave out food and clothing, all all you had to do was spend a few moments of your life listening to the good reverend explain why you were going to Hell. It seemed like a pretty good bargain, even to me, but I wasn't hungry.”
― Jeff Lindsay, quote from Dexter in the Dark
“God exists since mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exists since we cannot prove it.”
― Simon Singh, quote from Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
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