1
There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend. .Colleen McCullough
2
Belief doesn't rest on proof or existence...it rests on faith...without faith there is nothing.Colleen McCullough
3
Suddenly the thought that the end of her life was imminent shocked him; it was one thing to pity someone he didn't know, quite another to face the same dilemma with someone he knew intimately. That was the trouble with beds. They turned strangers into intimates more quickly than ten years of polite teas in parlours.Colleen McCullough
4
He owe his wife a debt he couldn't hope to pay with any coin save one: open the cage and let the bird fly.Colleen McCullough
5
He hadn't wooed her, but had simply claimed her. A gold mine ready to dig. There should have been a period of quiet dinners together, of flowers rather than diamonds, of kisses given after permission to kiss, of a slow awakening that predisposed her to greater intimacies. But no, not the great Alexander Kinross! He had met her, he had married her the next day, and climbed into her bed after one kiss in the church. There to prove himself an animal in her eyes. One mistake after another, that was the story of his relationship with Elizabeth. And Ruby had always meant more. .Colleen McCullough
6
Do you realize that you've been married to me for just about half of your entire life?" Her head came down, her eyes opened wide to stare at him. "Is that all?" she asked. "It seems an eternity"." Did I say a quiet lion?" Alexander pulled a face. "An eternity with me has turned you into a bitch, my dear".Colleen McCullough
7
We are not here together just to make children, Elizabeth. What we're going to do is sanctified by marriage. It's an act of love - of love. Not merely of the flesh, but of the mind and even the soul. There's nothing about it you shouldn't welcome.Colleen McCullough
8
Dr. Murray made it clear to me before I left that a woman who enhoys the Act is as loose as a harlot. God gives pleasure in it only to husbands. Women are the source of evil and temptation, therefore women are to blame when men fall into fleshly error. It was Eve who seduced Adam, Eve who entered into league with the serpent, who was the Devil in disguise. So the only pleasure women are allowed is in their children.Colleen McCullough
9
I have discovered, " he said to Charles Dewy, "that when a man marries, peace of mind and freedom go out of the window."" Well, old boy, " said Charles comfortably, "that's the price we have to pay for having company in our old age and for ensuring that we have heirs to follow us.Colleen McCullough
10
But work used to be the lot of every man, and now it is rapidly becoming an aristocratic privilege. Men nowadays are more often paid not to work.Colleen McCullough
11
Until you can leave the matter of forgiveness to God, you will not have acquired true humility.Colleen McCullough
12
And gradually his memory slipped a little, as memories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing process within the mind which mends up in spite of our desperate determination never to forget.Colleen McCullough
13
Why shouldn't the living cords which lace our being together flick softly against a loved one in the very moment of their unraveling?... Sometimes, all the miles between are as nothing, sometimes, they are narrowed to the little silence between the beats of a heart.Colleen McCullough
14
The best thing about being 40 is that you can appreciate 25-year-old men more.Colleen McCullough
15
He was, he admitted, a man who liked to have his cake and eat it too.Colleen McCullough
16
How frightening, that one person could mean so much, so many things.Colleen McCullough
17
Twelve thousand miles of it, to the other side of the world. And whether they came home again or not, they would belong neither here, nor there, for they would have lived on two continents and sampled two different ways of life.Colleen McCullough
18
We can know what we do wrong even before we do it, but self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.Colleen McCullough
19
Luke’s not a bad man, or even an unlikable one, ” she went on. “Just a man. You’re all the same, great big hairy moths bashing yourselves to pieces after a silly flame behind a glass so clear your eyes don’t see it. And if you do manage to blunder your way inside the glass to fly into the flame, you fall down burned and dead. While all the time out there in the cool night there’s food, and love, and baby moths to get. But do you see it, do you want it? No! It’s back after the flame again, beating yourselves senseless until you burn yourselves dead! .Colleen McCullough
20
Perfection in anything is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection.Colleen McCullough
21
Meggie dropped to her knees, scrambling frantically to collect the miniature clothes before more damage was done them, then she began picking among the grass blades where she thought the pearls might have fallen. Her tears were blinding her, the grief in her heart new, for until now she had never owned anything worth grieving for.Colleen McCullough
22
Rain, rain, rain. Like a benediction from some vast inscrutable hand, long withheld, finally given. The blessed, wonderful rain. For rain meant grass, and grass was life.Colleen McCullough
23
The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.Colleen McCullough