Margaret Frazer > Quotes

“Joliffe knew their audience was with them when Christ declared at the money-changers, "You knaves! You thieves and rascals! Defaming the Lord God's honor as you do! Making his house into a den of thieves and taking what is not yours to take, like shepherds never shearing but butchering every sheep!" and among the lookers-on heads turned and some people pointed at Father Hewgo standing at his church door, glaring, his arms tightly folded aross his chest, well apart from it all but making sure his disapproval lowered over everything. Joliffe had not written the lines at him but might as well have because his parishioners surely saw a match; there was even scattered laughter that would do nothing to soften him toward the players.”
― Margaret Frazer, A Play of Knaves

“Both heaven and earth rejoice when a saint escapes the earthly body: Heaven because a soul has triumphed over the devil. And earth because a saint is a prickly person to live with.”
― Margaret Frazer, The Novice's Tale

“again.”
― Margaret Frazer, The Murderer's Tale

“Had he thought the power to make folk miserable was a greater power than to play fair with them? That was a mistake common to small-witted people—to think good was a weaker thing than evil. From all that Joliffe had seen, evil—in both its greater ways and in such petty ones as bullying—was the weak man’s”
― Margaret Frazer, A Play of Knaves

“But everyone’s life always came down to choices.”
― Margaret Frazer, A Play of Isaac

“she paused to gaze into the garth where every leaf of grass and petal of flower was sparkling with crystal droplets.  The air was rich with the smell of wet earth and growing things, and Frevisse drew a deep breath, letting everything but the moment’s loveliness slip from her mind.  She had learned the value of life’s momentary beauties and to enjoy them when they came.”
― Margaret Frazer, The Boy's Tale

“Adventures always have to be at least a little uncomfortable or who would know you'd had one? ”
― Margaret Frazer, The Outlaw's Tale

“In the cloister walk she paused to gaze into the garth where every leaf of grass and petal of flower was sparkling with crystal droplets.  The air was rich with the smell of wet earth and growing things, and Frevisse drew a deep breath, letting everything but the moment’s loveliness slip from her mind.  She had learned the value of life’s momentary beauties and to enjoy them when they came.”
― Margaret Frazer, The Boy's Tale

“I have this clutter of questions all churned together in my mind and they won't stop churning. I've found out too much and not enough. there are too many pieces that could go together too many ways and I can't stop shifting them around. There has to be some way it all makes sense and it doesn't yet."

"You're asking a lot of life if you want it to make sense."

Most of the time, Joliffe was of the same opinion, but he shook his head against it now like against a fly's buzz and said nothing, frowning at the pen he was still twirling.

Basset watched him a moment, then said,
"Well, if you can't let it go, go at it as if you were trying to make a story of all these pieces you have. Shift them around and fill the gaps until they make the sense you want.”
― Margaret Frazer, A Play of Dux Moraud

“You think too much,’ said Ellis.”
― Margaret Frazer, A Play of Dux Moraud

“Joliffe, watching him over the rim of his own bowl, felt for his discontent. In his own life there were other things he could have been besides a player---several other things he had been besides a player--but at least he had had choices and made them. He doubted this fellow had ever seen anything else to be but what he was. Or else he had refused other choices if they ever came. but staying with what you were born to was a choice, too, and the one that most people made--a choice that Joliffe could have made, too, upon a time, but had not and of that he was still glad.”
― Margaret Frazer, A Play of Dux Moraud

“They left soon thereafter, Joliffe leading Tisbe, Basset walking with Ellis in excited talk on the cart’s far side, Rose following behind, hand-in-hand with Piers, out of the Penteney gateway, headed for the eastward road, for Aylesbury and places beyond, the world looking a far brighter place than it had looked for a while and a long while past.”
― Margaret Frazer, A Play of Isaac