Susan Howatch > Quotes

“One wonders what would happen in a society in which there were no rules to break. Doubtless everyone would quickly die of boredom. ”
― Susan Howatch

“The organist was almost at the end of the anthem’s long introduction, and as the crescendo increases the cathedral began to glitter before my eyes until I felt as if every stone in the building was vibrating in anticipation of the sweeping sword of sound from the Choir.

The note exploded in our midst, and at that moment I knew our creator had touched not only me but all of us, just as Harriet had touched that sculpture with a loving hand long ago, and in that touch I sensed the indestructible fidelity, the indescribable devotion and the inexhaustible energy of the creator as he shaped his creation, bringing life out of dead matter, wresting form continually from chaos. Nothing was ever lost, Harriet had said, and nothing was ever wasted because always, when the work was finally completed, every article of the created process, seen or unseen, kept or discarded, broken or mended – EVERYTHING was justified, glorified and redeemed.”
― Susan Howatch

“...lonely, very lonely to have a past no one else can share.”
― Susan Howatch, The Wheel of Fortune

“> ...all I could think was what hell it is for the survivors when death slams into life without warning and smashes every fixed point on the emotional map.”
― Susan Howatch from Wheel of Fortune

“if you pursue the truth far enough you always wind up in the land of paradox. You reach a point where the apparent truth divides into two opposing truths and then you have to try to reach beyond them to grasp the ultimate truth, their synthesis.”
― Susan Howatch

“Its really most remarkable how the human race is so seldom satisfied with what its got. Give a man the world and he's pining for the moon.”
― Susan Howatch, Penmarric

“The advantage of telling the truth is that one is so much more likely to sound convincing.”
― Susan Howatch

“practice makes perfect and although God did create Adam he was more accomplished when the time came for him to create Eve.”
― Susan Howatch, The Wheel of Fortune

“There’s a pattern. Never, never doubt that there’s a pattern. There’s a pattern always. Everywhere. In everyone.”
― Susan Howatch, Penmarric

“Life's not about the day when you win the prizes - it's about all the days in between. p 255”
― Susan Howatch, Ultimate Prizes

“Think of me as the porter . . . and consider the possiblity that life might be less exhausting if you unloaded some of your bags on to my empty trolley.”
― Susan Howatch, Glittering Images

“Science destroys only the false ideas about religion; the true ideas it complements and explores.)”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“I was wondering if the scene in the drawing-room had been a triumph or a disaster or merely a chaotic piece of bad taste verging on bathos, but I reflected that the only important question was whether I had communicated my message to my parents. I continued to smoke my cigarette and occasionally I shuddered. I wondered dimly how anyone ever survived their families.”
― Susan Howatch, Glittering Images

“Religion is about integration, about successfully bringing the selfish ego into line with the centre of the personality where God exists, as a divine spark, in every human being. Religion is about helping man to live in harmony with his true self and to become the person God’s designed him to be.”
― Susan Howatch, Mystical Paths

“The very rich are no different; they just have more money. The real difference in this world is not between the rich and the poor but between those who create and those incapable of creation.”
― Susan Howatch, Sins of the Fathers

“There is no timetable for grief,” said Bronwen Morgan. “Grief isn’t a train which you catch at the station. Grief has its own time, and grief’s time is beyond time, and time itself … isn’t very important.”
― Susan Howatch, The Wheel of Fortune

“My first recommendation...will be that you should have a holiday. You are worn out by all your unhappiness.”
― Susan Howatch, Ultimate Prizes

“You have here a parable, the subject of which might be called The Persistence of Truth … Whatever fears, adversities, or doubts assail you, go forward calmly in the knowledge that the truth persists, and will prove itself in persisting. Though prayer be hard, though your soul walk in darkness, though your spiritual memories be shadowed by many a doubt, go forward secure in the knowledge that the truth of God endureth to all generations, and by its endurance will prove itself the very truth.” REGINALD SOMERSET WARD (1881–1962) Anglican Priest and Spiritual Director THE WAY”
― Susan Howatch, Absolute Truths

“and daughters who are so hopeless at doing the done thing and sticking to the rules are automatically paralyzed with guilt whenever they come within fifty yards of a mother like Margaret.”
― Susan Howatch, The Wheel of Fortune

“I was ten years old when I first saw the inheritance and twenty years old when I first saw Janna Roslyn, but my reaction to both was identical. I wanted them.”
― Susan Howatch, Penmarric

“It’s dangerous to make a judgement when one can’t know all the facts,” pursued Darrow, “and since only God can know all the facts, one can only conclude that it’s best to leave the judgements to God.”
― Susan Howatch, Glittering Images

“One wonders what would happen in a society where there were no rules to break. Doubtlessly everyone would quickly die of boredom.”
― Susan Howatch

“The rules that apply to line on dry land no longer apply. You're immersed in water, a substance which has the potential to drown you. If you're not accustomed to swimming every instinct tells you to yell in terror and grab the rail at hte side of the pool, but in fact this isn't the way to deal with the problem. You have to make the problem no longer a problem by embracing it--you have to let go of the rail and launch yourself out on the water because once you're swimming...you find the water's stimulating, bracing, even welcoming. So by embracing the chaos instead of shunning it you've opened up a whole new dimension of reality. Father Lewis Hall”
― Susan Howatch, The High Flyer: Number 2 in series

“Fact number two: all women basically want to be wives and mothers—’ ‘No, honey, they don’t. Sorry, but they just don’t. My fifty per cent of the human race isn’t a bunch of identical plastic dolls. We’re human beings and we’re all different and – incredible though this may seem to you – we don’t all want the same thing”
― Susan Howatch, Sins of the Fathers

“but a show of force by the mightiest nation on earth isn’t going to do anything except convince them that their attitudes are worth holding on to. Soon they’ll be martyrs and world opinion will think the British Empire nothing but a big bully too fond of waving the big stick.”
― Susan Howatch, Penmarric

“But then I looked in the glass and saw the spy beyond the clergyman, the image beyond the image, and beyond the spy was yet another man, the image beyond the image beyond the image. Reality blurred; fantasy and truth became inextricably intertwined. I told myself I had imagined the distant stranger but as I felt my personality begin to divide I covered my face with my hands.”
― Susan Howatch, Glittering Images

“Everything’s absolutely fine really—except that sometimes I think I can’t go on any more”
― Susan Howatch, Glittering Images

“Better to live in the truth, however terrible, than to murder your true self by living a lie.”
― Susan Howatch, The Wheel of Fortune

“Of all the great empires the world has known, ours will be the shortest. Two hundred years of chasing the Godalmighty Dollar, and what do we produce? The A-Bomb and I Love Lucy.”
― Susan Howatch, Sins of the Fathers

“Nobody is more of a patriot than I am, but I’ve very little confidence in politicians and even less confidence in wars.”
― Susan Howatch, Penmarric