Edward Rutherfurd · 778 pages
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“The English Church, it was claimed, was Catholicism purified and reformed. And what was the nature of this reform? The truth was that nobody, least of all Henry himself, had much idea.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“That was the trouble with being too highly born, Finbarr considered. The gods paid too much attention to you. It was ever thus in the Celtic world. Ravens would fly over the house to announce the death of a clan chief, swans would desert the lake. A king’s bad judgement could affect the weather. And if you were a prince, the druids made prophesies about you from before the day you were born; and after that, there was no escape.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“The great festival of Lughnasa was held at Carmun once every three years. The site of Carmun was eerie. In a land of wild forest and bog, it was an open grassy space that stretched, green and empty, halfway to the horizon. Lying some distance west of the point where, if you were following it upstream, the Liffey’s course began to retreat eastwards on the way to its source in the Wicklow Mountains, the place was absolutely flat, except for some mounds in which ancestral chiefs were buried. The festival lasted a week. There were areas reserved for food and livestock markets, and another where fine clothes were sold; but the most important quarter was where a large racetrack was laid out on the bare turf.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“In recent decades, Ireland in general and Dublin in particular, have been very fortunate in the quality of the historical attention they have received. During the extensive research required to write this book, I have been privileged to work with some of Ireland’s most distinguished scholars, who have generously shared their knowledge with me and corrected my texts. Their kind contributions are mentioned in the Acknowledgements. Thanks to the scholarly work of the last quarter century, there has been a reevaluation of certain aspects of Ireland’s history; and as a result, the story that follows may contain a number of surprises for many readers. I have provided a few additional notes in the Afterword at the end of this volume for those curious to know more.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“In less than a month it would be the magical feast of Samhain. Some years this took place at the great ceremonial centre of Tara; other years it was held at other places. At Samhain the excess livestock would be slaughtered, the rest put out on the wasteland and later brought into pens, while the High King and his followers set off on their winter rounds. Until then, however, it was a slow and peaceful time. The harvest was in, the weather still warm. It should, for the High King, have been a time of contentment.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“We, the heirs of Saint Patrick, we who kept alive the Christian faith and the writings of ancient Rome when most of the world had sunk under the barbarians, we who gave the Saxons their education are to be taught a lesson in Christianity by the English?”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“This Plantagenet king comes from the devil.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“We have all been robbed of the land we have loved for a thousand years. Do you not see that, Welshman? Can you not imagine his rage? We were not even conquered. We were deceived.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from The Princes of Ireland
“The sunset was really over, but a thunderously deep stain of red still lay across the furthest limit of the western sky. I looked out to it for a moment. Skye was somewhere out there, more felt than seen.”
― Iain Banks, quote from Espedair Street
“There are problems with the wombat," Nathan Schick said. "I was interested in wombats in '29. I went up to your zoo in Sydney and looked at the wombat. The fellow said you could train them but God, Herbie, no offence... Lee-Anne... but the wombat is not star quality.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“The war at Troy seemed to grow in song, poetry, and story all the while. As it faded from living memory, it grew larger and larger. Men claimed descent from one or the other of the heroes, or, failing that, anyone who had fought in the war, which now assumed the stature of a clash between the gods and the titans.”
― Margaret George, quote from Helen of Troy
“What did Kevin Ye get arrested for anyway? Didn't he steal a car?"
"He stole the driver's ed car."
I laughed. Then I saw how Adam was looking at me.
"He gave it back."
"They MAKE you give stuff back, Lori, after they arrest you for stealing it.”
― Jennifer Echols, quote from Endless Summer
“it is the vibrational essence of the subject of your attention that is attracted. That which you really, really want, you get—and that which you really, really do not want, you get.”
― Esther Hicks, quote from The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham
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