Monica Furlong > Quotes

“I don't like cleaning or dusting or cooking or doing dishes, or any of those things," I explained to her. "And I don't usually do it. I find it boring, you see."

"Everyone has to do those things," she said.

"Rich people don't," I pointed out.

Juniper laughed, as she often did at things I said in those early days, but at once became quite serious.

"They miss a lot of fun," she said. "But quite apart from that--keeping yourself clean, preparing the food you are going to eat, clearing it away afterward--that's what life's about, Wise Child. When people forget that, or lose touch with it, then they lose touch with other important things as well."

"Men don't do those things."

"Exactly. Also, as you clean the house up, it gives you time to tidy yourself up inside--you'll see.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“. . . to my surprise I began to know what The Language was about, not just the part we were singing now but the whole poem. It began with the praise and joy in all creation, copying the voice of the wind and the sea. It described sun and moon, stars and clouds, birth and death, winter and spring, the essence of fish, bird, animal, and man. It spoke in what seemed to be the language of each creature. . . . It spoke of well, spring, and stream, of the seed that comes from the loins of a male creature and of the embryo that grows in the womb of the female. It pictured the dry seed deep in the dark earth, feeling the rain and the warmth seeping down to it. It sang of the green shoot and of the tawny heads of harvest grain standing out in the field under the great moon. It described the chrysalis that turns into a golden butterfly, the eggs that break to let out the fluffy bird life within, the birth pangs of woman and of beast. It went on to speak of the dark ferocity of the creatures that pounce upon their prey and plunge their teeth into it--it spoke in the muffled voice of bear and wolf--it sang the song of the great hawks and eagles and owls until their wild faces seemed to be staring into mine, and I knew myself as wild as they. It sang the minor chords of pain and sickness, of injury and old age; for a few moments I felt I was an old woman with age heavy upon me.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“All learned people learn Latin. It's bound to come in useful. Fairy tales, on the other hand, are about real life.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“Wise Child: Why don't you beat me then?
Juniper: I can't be bothered.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“You always feel someone must be to blame when you are cold or miserable or frightened…It may not be so at all – it is just the weather of life – but even if they are to blame…does it matter?”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“People are like a pack of dogs sometimes. All right one by one, but together... together they do awful things they don't mean to do.”
― Monica Furlong

“All this I told Juniper, and she listened in the quiet, dispassionate way she had when you told her something truly terrible. It was as if she was joining things together in her mind, making some act of love and healing where otherwise all was violence and despair.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“Perhaps you will tell us now what a Doran is."
"it is someone who loves all the creatures of the world, the animals, birds, plants, trees, and people, and who cannot bear to do any of them harm. It is someone who believes that they are all linked together and that therefore everything can be used to heal the pain and suffering of the world. It is someone who does not hate anybody and who is not frightened of anyone or anything.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“I want to be special,” I said obstinately at last.

“So does everyone else. So we have to take turns.”

‘But some people are more special than others, aren’t they?“

Juniper suddenly got extremely irritated.

"The really special ones are the ones who don’t even think about it,” she said.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“What is difficult about learning - any kind of learning - is that you have to give up what you know already to make room for the new ideas. Children are much better at it than grownups.”
― Monica Furlong

“Here you will never learn anything just because girls do it. But it’s a pity not to do things just because girls do them. Work must be done for its own sake.”
― Monica Furlong, Wise Child

“To begin with she taught me how to tease wool, the process of preparing it for spinning. I learned to pull the wool off the fleece, take out the dirty and tangled bits, part the wool between my fingers until it was of even texture, and then comb it into delicate little rolls.
"It's the preparation that counts in spinning," Anghard said. "If you are lazy about that you will never spin an even thread."...
..."Wool is a living thing," she said once.”
― Monica Furlong, Juniper

“From high in the sky I looked down upon an island, and then I was standing on the island in front of a house. The house was white and stood upon a sort of inland cliff. I entered it, and there was a great hearth in the center of the room, the heart, I thought, of a place full of peace. Behind it were shelves with jars full of liquid, and when I looked out I could see a garden with neat rows of herbs. On the other side I could see that the land fell away, and in the distance was a view of a village and sea and shore. Feeling almost as if I were trespassing in someone’s house and the owner might come home and catch me, I sat in a big chair by the hearth, watched thoughtfully by an owl—not Moon—who perched on a shelf. As I did so, my fears subsided. I knew that this was my chair and my house, that I fitted it perfectly and was completely comfortable, that this was the place in the world that I was seeking. It was a place in which there was no dread.”
― Monica Furlong, Juniper

“The journey inward is what gives meaning to the life outside ourselves. Not in any static, dogmatic, once-for-all way either, but in a way that grows and develops and changes to meet different circumstances, different stages of development. Contemplation is not an optional extra -- it is, as much as action, part of the very stuff of being human." ”
― Monica Furlong

“Marian, in her boy’s clothing, sat astride a fallen treetrunk near the Trysetell Tree, her eyes fixed on Robin, who stood perfectly still, waiting. He looked at her, smiling the smile Dummy had noticed before whenever he was in danger, as if he were living entirely in that moment of time without thought for the past or future, and was thoroughly enjoying himself.”
“Gilbert wrapped Jehan in a cloak of Lincoln green and laid him tenderly in the Oratory, heaping the bright snow about him.”
― Monica Furlong, Robin's Country

“The human problem, as Watts sees it, is the attempt to gain control of the “streaming,” a habitual tension that sets up a chronic frustration, the belief that force or effort or will can solve our difficulties.”
― Monica Furlong, Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts