Elizabeth Goudge Quotes

“Don’t waste hate on pink geranium.”

″‘Nothing is ever finished and done with in this world,’ said Old Parson. ‘You may think a seed was finished and done with when it falls like a dead thing into the earth; but when it puts forth leaves and flowers next spring you see your mistake.‘”

“Humanity can be roughly divided into three sorts of people- those who find comfort in literature, those who find comfort in personal adornment, and those who find comfort in food; and Miss Heliotrope, Maria, and Wiggins were typical representatives of their own sort of people.”

“Maria was one of your true aristocrats; the perfection of the hidden things was even more important to her than the outward show.”

“In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character.”

“She was trying not to be frightened in her mind, and she found that that sort of waiting and thinking really keep a person quite busy.”

“She could only wait. But she was not idle while she waited, because she was holding herself in readiness for whatever it was that she would have to do.”

″...she herself had been whipped for her peccadilloes within an inch of her life, Miss Heliotrope caring now not two hoots whether Maria liked her or not, if only she could make the child a fine and noble woman. This is true love and Maria had known it;”

“Maria, though decidedly vain and much too inquisitive, was possessed of the fine qualities of honour and courage and fastidiousness, and Miss Heliotrope was entirely made of love and patience.”

″...And for a fleeting instant, at the far end of a glade, she thought she saw a little white horse with flowing mane and tail, head raised, poised, halted in mid-flight, as though it had seen her and was glad.”