“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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“Biting the hand that feeds you, that's what you're doing Mary Logan, biting the hand that feeds you.'
Again Mama laughed, 'If that's the case, Daisy, I don't think I need that little bit of food.'
With the second book finished, she stared at a small pile of second grade books on her desk.
'Well, I just think you're spoiling those children, Mary. They've got to learn how things are sometime.'
'Maybe so,' said Mama. 'But that doesn't mean they have to accept them. And maybe we don't either.”
― Mildred D. Taylor, quote from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
“Speaking of death, LeBlanc boasted he could kill me in the waiting room. I broke his wrist. He wasn't impressed.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from Bitten
“And do you really think someone's going to look at you and say, 'Hmm, I think that girl's a plant'?”
― Aprilynne Pike, quote from Wings
“Would it help perhaps if I told you that, had your father returned to me alone, I would have sent him on his way unharmed?”
“You would!” I said; it was half a shriek. “You mean that I came here for nothing?”
A shadowy movement like the shaking of a great shaggy head. “No. Not what you would count as nothing. He would have returned to you, and you would have been glad, but you also would have been ashamed, because you had sent him, as you thought, to his death. Your shame would have grown until you came to hate the sight of your father, because he reminded you of a deed you hated, and hated yourself for. In time it would have ruined your peace and happiness, and at last your mind and heart.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
“I must think about something else for a while. But then I remember his warn arms and his big strong legs touching mine and how hard and wide his chest was and how hot his kiss was, and I got outside and feed the chickens. They are getting mighty fat.”
― Nancy E. Turner, quote from These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories
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