Marcia Willett > Quotes

“the ingredients for lunch: ciabatta bread, couscous salad with apricots, ham, and a goat’s cheese flan,”
― Marcia Willett, The Sea Garden

“Some of the cottages have tiny courtyards surrounded by high stone walls. These walls are bright with flowers: valerian, feverfew, mallows, lace cap hydrangeas spring from the crevices in these stones and flourish in the salty air.
If she looks across the river Evie can see Kingswear with its tier upon tier of houses stacked on the hill above the marina: narrow terraced houses the color of ice cream: mint, vanilla, bubblegum, coffee.”
― Marcia Willett, Summer On The River

“side. When she tries to explain her passion for it he reminds her how Anthony Trollope wrote all his books after a hard day’s work at the Post Office.”
― Marcia Willett, The Sea Garden

“her stay in it with them, then she could accept it thankfully and without guilt. Sometimes, selfish people were so much less tiring to deal with than the unselfish. The fact that you knew they were doing exactly what they wanted to do was so restful. Not that Alistair was selfish, he”
― Marcia Willett, The Dipper

“It’s not easy, you know, to surrender yourself wholeheartedly and generously. Whether the relationship is with God or with another person, there’s a great deal of giving-up of self involved in it. I couldn’t do it.”
― Marcia Willett, Memories Of The Storm

“fairly”
― Marcia Willett, Looking Forward

“Don't try to fight depression and fear with violent physical or mental exercise. But don't give into them either. Just think. Oh, here they are again, and look past them, as if you were looking over someone's shoulder at something beyond. Fix your mind on what's beyond.'

'But how do you do that?' Louise stared at her in perplexity, longing for some kind of formula, but confused and pessimistic. 'How can you see past something so . . . so huge?'

'You have to practise it. You mustn't let them be important, you see, or you simply feed their power. Don't pretend they're not there by flinging yourself into some manic busyness, they'll simply reappear when you're exhausted, but just look past them as you might look past a tall person sitting in front of you at the theatre. You know he's there but he doesn't prevent you from watching the action. Have something positive to look at—your next possible achievement, for instance, or something as simple as a cup of coffee. Something cheerful but attainable.”
― Marcia Willett, A Summer in the Country

“Each is free to be everything the other desires, we fulfil each other’s fantasies, and do not risk the boredom of familiarity.”
― Marcia Willett, Amy Wingate's Journal

“out, hoping”
― Marcia Willett, Holding On

“Prayers like gravel Flung at the sky’s window, hoping to attract the loved one’s attention . . . . . . I would have refrained long since but that peering once through my locked fingers I thought that I detected the movement of a curtain.”
― Marcia Willett, Memories Of The Storm

“swallowed,”
― Marcia Willett, Thea's Parrot

“enjoying the unexpected warmth, lumbered lazily”
― Marcia Willett, Holding On

“We serve others as much by our weaknesses as by our strengths. The only difficult is that it takes humility and courage to be able to live by it.”
― Marcia Willett, A Summer in the Country

“humour”
― Marcia Willett, Seven Days in Summer

“So much time and energy, so much love and learning had gone into those long years of motherhood, and now, between a morning and a morning—or so it felt—they were over. It seemed that mothers of daughters had a more extended role but she knew that she was lucky to be allowed any part in her boys' lives and tried hard to be grateful and undemanding. It wasn't always easy, when she loved them so much, to practice detachment.... Odd that the last of the parenting skills should be the most painful: the final act of letting go.”
― Marcia Willett, A Summer in the Country

“those made by his brother. It wasn’t as if Edward looked like Maria. That might have been painful but it would have been a start, something to work on . . . She thought: The thing about families is that if we’re lucky we all recognise certain things in one another and then we know how to react. Hal and Jolyon were like Johnny, with bits of Freddy jumbled in, and Kit was like herself, Prue, and Prue’s own mother; there was a certain instability combined with a reckless love of life which could be hazardous. Kit had turned to darling old Clarrie but there had been moments when Prue had feared that her daughter might go off the rails, especially after that terrible business with Jake. Now”
― Marcia Willett, Winning Through

“Despite her confidence, there had been occasions when she had been ready to submit her will to his. It had been she who had suggested that he should live at The Keep but he returned only when he was certain that her own strength was too well developed to be open to his influence. It had been neither too early nor too late and they had had seven years of quiet happiness. It had been this happiness which he had been reluctant to disturb by pursuing his suspicions about Fliss’s sudden decision to marry Miles. Well, it was too late now. Fliss would go to Hong Kong and have”
― Marcia Willett, Holding On

“her as his stepmother but there is”
― Marcia Willett, Summer On The River

“Most people find it difficult to believe that others choose a way of life that is unlike their own. They prefer to think that it must be forced upon them through necessity or that they harbour a desire to be ‘different’, otherwise it might be seen as a criticism of their own decisions.”
― Marcia Willett, Amy Wingate's Journal

“on his shoulders. ‘Listen,’ she is saying, still in that desperate whisper. ‘Please just listen to me. I’m pregnant, Al. Just for God’s sake, listen . . .’ And then Dickie comes across the lawn from the house, calling out cheerfully, carrying some bottles, and Rowena sees Al’s head turn sharply, and both figures freeze into immobility and silence. She slips quickly away, joining Dickie a few moments later, and then Juliet appears alone, pinning up her hair and smiling – but there is no sign of”
― Marcia Willett, The Sea Garden

“back for some lunch?”
― Marcia Willett, Those Who Serve

“Canford, graceful, pretty, vivacious, having been translated from childhood to womanhood between one season and the next. Now Daisy was performing the same miracle. She looked so like Miggy that it caught his heart; tall and slender, pale-skinned and delicate-boned. Her bright curls were the same coppery shade but her eyes were honey-brown – Patrick’s legacy – and set differently from Miggy’s green ones. She still loved to sail and row and swim but there was a dreaminess about her now, a secretive shyness, that touched him and evoked his natural protectiveness. He looked down over the creek to the mill and thought of Hattie. He was delighted that she had sold her cottage to her old friend Sarah who, to everyone’s relief, had long since abandoned her attitude of disapproval towards Miggy. It was a pity that people generally had to fall prey to their own weaknesses before they could understand or sympathise with others who had made mistakes but at least Sarah showed no tendencies to be hypocritical. Now, Hattie only had one cottage to worry about and, if all went according to plan, the other cottage would soon be occupied. Toby gave a great sigh of pleasure as he watched the heron, still”
― Marcia Willett, Hattie's Mill