Quotes From "The Secret Chord" By Geraldine Brooks

The common soldiers did not blame him for his excessive grief. They knew him. They knew his flaws. Indeed, I think they loved him all the more because he was flawed, as they were, and did not hide his passionate, blemished nature. Geraldine Brooks

As wars dwindled to skirmishes and our strength grew, so David was able to spend less time with military commanders and more with the engineers and overseers who were fanning out throughout the land, digging cisterns, making roads, fortifying, connecting, and generally making a nation out of our scattered people. Geraldine Brooks

I have lived most of my life in soldiers’ camps. I know what they saw. I know how they think. Their confidence sours as sudden as curdled milk. Geraldine Brooks

I thought it best to add nothing further, to let the line of his thought lead him to his own conclusions. Geraldine Brooks

Avner had lived too long and become too canny to claim the crown of Israel for himself. Geraldine Brooks

Even though he said no store in uncanny things, he was soldier enough to value with whatever weapon came to hand. Geraldine Brooks

When a kingdom rests on it, I always expect difficulty. Then, if there is none, no blame. But if there is, one is prepared. Geraldine Brooks

No one sits, as you do, so close to a king, who does not begin to grasp how the levers of power work, and the cost of the oil that must grease them. Geraldine Brooks

This night he was a king before he was a man. At this time, this troubled me. Later, I would have cause to wish it were always so. Geraldine Brooks

David was at his best in group settings, soldier enough to join in the raucous jests, king enough to make it matter that he remembered some moments of bravery or sacrifice, and praised each man accordingly. Geraldine Brooks

He is able to put aside personal feelings and see the broad strokes. Experience counts in these things. Geraldine Brooks

David ran through concrete advantages. And then set aside the practical. The pragmatist was gone, replaced by the poet and mystic. Geraldine Brooks

If soldiering did not interest him, the soldiers themselves were another matter. He loved to sit with the men and draw out their first-hand stories of past campaigns. Geraldine Brooks

The stories that grow up around a king are strong vines with a fierce grip. Geraldine Brooks

One did not need to penetrate David's secret counsels or insinuate a man in his bodyguard. All one needed was a pair of years and access to the royal precincts. Just to eavesdrop upon his singing was to develop an accurate idea of his state of mind. Geraldine Brooks

Curiosity — if not desire, if not plain kindness — might have led him to greater zeal. Geraldine Brooks

The greatest cruelty of madness is the power it has to blot out a person. Geraldine Brooks

I understood that I was being shown the future: shards of what would come to be. Often, I cried out for the pain of it. But other times, I was comforted, because I saw, for an instant, the pattern of the whole. Geraldine Brooks

Where was his empathy? Buried, I supposed, beneath his self-regard. Geraldine Brooks

The wiles of a veteran turned the younger man's own gift of speed against him. Geraldine Brooks

We look at the Ark of the Covenant and remember who we are. Geraldine Brooks

When the madness came, he would be like a man staggering along the rim of the abyss — which was his rage — and when the edge gave way or he missed his step, he might clutch at anyone within reach and drag that person with him over the precipice. Geraldine Brooks

He found his voice in the silences, where he could sing as loud and as long as he wanted with no one to complain of it. Geraldine Brooks

David would wear no purple cloth, no symbols of his kingship, when he went to greet the ark. In its presence, we were all of us servants. Geraldine Brooks

I liked to be off by myself, away from the eyes of adults who always had some task or errand to demand of an unoccupied child. Geraldine Brooks

It is one thing to know what is to come. It is another thing to confront it. Geraldine Brooks

He gave himself fully to the penitent life, fasting, praying, confessing his wickedness and execrating himself in public. He became a better man in the small matters of his days, an even better, wiser king in the great matters of state. Geraldine Brooks

The heart of a prophet is not his own to bestow. Geraldine Brooks

He did wrong. He has acknowledged it before the people. He repents it. How many kings have the humility to do that? Geraldine Brooks

You don't need a prophet to tell you to eat. Geraldine Brooks

It's remarkable how very many things there are that a king may not do. Geraldine Brooks

I ceased to serve a king and began, instead, to serve a kingdom. Geraldine Brooks

David set me to learn other skills, too, in those days of restless waiting. Geraldine Brooks

He said that the music–its order and precision–helped him find the patterns in things–the way through the confusion of events and opinions to direction, to order, and beyond, to inspiration. Geraldine Brooks

In the heir's world, where everything was available, the unattainable had a wild allure. Geraldine Brooks

Being a father, having an heir, seem to add an extra dimension to David. He had always been of vivid, animating presence in any room he entered. But now he would come from visiting the boy crackling with even greater energy and force. He had been engaged listener, ready to learn what any man might have to offer in discussion, but now there was an additional depth to his questions, a more far-reaching vision behind his decisions. He thought now beyond the span of years, and into a future that glistened ahead into centuries. It's one thing, I suppose, to have a prophet tell you that you will found a dynasty. Now, it seemed, he allowed himself to truly believe it. . Geraldine Brooks

Even those who know better, such as the King, nurse strange ideas about me as a prophet. They do not understand that I am given to see only those matters that roil the heavens. They expect me to know everything. Geraldine Brooks

I knew that the Name was still with him, animating his soul, even as his body failed. Geraldine Brooks