S.J. Parris > Quotes

“I do not believe that any book should be denied to the man who possesses the wisdom to understand it, Bruno, but that does not mean I am confused about where truth lies.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“But they argued as lawyers do, they twisted every answer I gave until it sounded like the opposite meaning, and I became so confused and afraid I found myself agreeing to statements that I knew were not true.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“It is strange the way that someone who wants to find you guilty can start to make you believe in your own guilt, even when you know you are innocent. I was afraid I would condemn myself my mistake.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“I am a mixture of contradictory elements. Equal parts earth and fire, melancholy and choler, I fear. But it is more that warmth and blue skies stir the blood, do you not think?”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“No," I said simply. "I hate no one. I want only to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in my own way.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“If the universe is infinite, as I believe, then it must surely contain an infinite number of possibilities that we have not yet imagined or attempted to harness...”
― S.J. Parris, Prophecy

“I realised with a prickle of discomfort why he bothered me: it was not so much that I resented the hearty backslapping bonhomie of English upper-class gentlemen, for I could tolerate it well enough in Sidney on his own. It was the way Sidney fell so easily into this strutting group of young men, where I could not, and the fear that he might in some ways prefer their company to mine. Once again, I felt that peculiar stab of loneliness that only an exile truly knows: the sense that I did not belong, and never would again.”
― S. J. Parris (Heresy: An Historical Thriller), Heresy

“Once again, I felt that peculiar stab of loneliness that only an exile truly knows: the sense that I did not belong and never would again.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“The Catholic chruch as threatened your life - do you not want revenge? Have you not sold your hatred to the Pretestant cause to work against the church that has hunted you?"
"No," I said simply. "I hate no one. I want only to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in my own way."
"God has already laid out for us the mysteries of the universe, or as much as He permits us to understand. You think your way is better?"
"Better than these wars of dogma that have led men to burn and fillet one another across Europe for fifty years? Yes, I do."
"Then what is it you believe?"
I looked at him. "I believe that, in the end, even the devils will be pardoned.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“I was not afraid to die for my beliefs, but not until I had determined which beliefs were worth dying for.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“Men might rise above the divisions for which so much blood has been spilled, and is still being spilled, and understand their essential unity.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“felt increasingly sure that God, whatever form He took, had not created us to kill and torture one another over the name we give Him.”
― S.J. Parris, The Secret Dead

“I have also learned that adventure is not always something to seek for its own sake. You don’t realise the value of a home until you no longer have one,”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“could”
― S.J. Parris, Execution

“Her name is a banner to rally every angry young man who believes his fortunes would be better if the clocks could be turned backwards to a golden England of yesteryear, before the break with Rome. An England that exists only in his imagination, but no matter – he will plunge the country into ruin to recover it.”
― S.J. Parris, Execution

“I kept my eyes on the ground. Did you never, at twenty-one, I wanted to ask him, find mischief in mocking a pompous, puffed-up buffoon twice your age, or were you already tearing people’s fingernails out for Jesus?”
― S.J. Parris, A Christmas Requiem

“Indeed cocktail parties are death as I am sure 99 per cent of DS colleagues would agree. Whoever it was who suggested an international treaty banning National Day receptions should be canonised.”
― Parris, Parting Shots

“knew when Henri brought you here for”
― S.J. Parris, Conspiracy

“useful”
― S.J. Parris, Execution

“now more than ever, Christendom desperately needed a new philosophy, one that would draw us together as we passed from the shadows of religious wars into the enlightenment of our shared humanity and shared divinity.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“Because I believe God is bigger than the rules we impose on one another. I think He does not mind if we find different paths to Him.”
― S.J. Parris

“All our past deeds, gentlemen, one way or another, will be washed up on the shore of the present.”
― S.J. Parris, Treachery

“Perhaps it is a trait of rich boys, I thought: craving adventure in a life made dull by the absence of daily cares.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“she paused, head tilted, as if considering whether she could comply with such an outlandish request. ‘Is there a problem?’ I said. She glanced towards the kitchen and”
― S.J. Parris, Alchemy

“I have not yet managed to understand this about the English; in Naples, if a man despises another, he spits in his face openly or insults his family, and then a fight ensues. Here, they shake one another’s hand, dine together, smile with their teeth only and wait until the other’s back is turned before striking their blow, and this agreed deception is called etiquette.”
― S.J. Parris, Sacrilege

“One moment of indecision decides a man's fate.”
― S. J. Parris

“You ask a great many questions, Doctor Bruno,’ Thomas Drake mutters.”
― S.J. Parris, Treachery

“A shutter is clicked, a flash goes off and you've stopped time. If just for a blink of an eye. And if these pictures have anything to say to the future generation, it is this 'I was here, I existed, I was young, I was happy and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture.”
― Sy Parrish

“What kind of a religion is it (...) that makes a man fall in love with death over life? Where is love, then? Where is human kindness?”
― S. J. Parris

“Would it always be the same: corrupt and self-serving men exploiting those who had no voice, because they were comfortably sure they would never be challenged?”
― S.J. Parris, Sacrilege