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

— 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

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

Does any woman ever count the grains of her harvest and say: Good enough? Or does one always think of what more one might have laid in, had the labor been harder, the ambition more vast, the choices more sage?

— Geraldine Brooks

Even the ordinary business of cleaning house seemed somehow to have become sacramental.

— 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

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

— Geraldine Brooks

From "Caleb's Crossing"--This is an excellent thought about family though it doesn't apply to me. I am lucky in my brothers." Now, of all times in my life, did I wish Caleb truly was my brother, rather than that selfish, imperious, weak-willed soul to whom fate had shackled me.

— Geraldine Brooks

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

— 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