Jennifer

“What is the scent of water?” “Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew. Mary, it is most alarming, the way you make me talk. I don’t talk to anyone else as I do to you. I’d be ashamed to.” Mary was suddenly aware of wealth and when he asked her again, “Well, are you happy?” she replied with absolute truth, “Yes, I am.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water

“Revenge is not a straight line, it’s a circle. It’s a grenade that goes off while you’re still in the room, and you can’t help but be caught in the blast.”
― Richard Osman, The Man Who Died Twice

“And so it seems to me now right that the two people who mean most to my life, the old man who gazed entranced at the butterflies in my parents’ garden and the child Mary, should have been physically the most parted from me. With both there was only the one meeting, yet they are now more to me than even Ambrose or Jenny. I never grieved that I did not see the old man again and I will set myself to learn not to grieve because I shall not see Mary again. The broken relationship, touched by God, is whole and perfect as it could not have been if there had been the normal sequence of human misunderstandings. I am so thankful for all I have learned here, for the treasure hid in a field. It’s not the final treasure, it’s merely a shadow of coming knowledge, not knowledge itself.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water

“read somewhere, and it’s quite true, that to know perfect happiness a woman may be a mother, but must be a grandmother.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim's Inn