In the old days he had clutched life with such violence that the juice of it ran out between his fingers and was lost, but now he would touch it delicately, thankful for the good and accepting the ills with patience.

— Elizabeth Goudge

In what he suffered, as in all true suffering and in true joy, there was the quality of eternity. He could not believe it would ever end.

— Elizabeth Goudge

It was not the size of things that mattered but their perfection, it was not what one had that was important, but what one made.

— Elizabeth Goudge

Jean was visited by one of her rare moments of happiness, one of those moments when the goodness of God was so real to her that it was like taste and scent; the rough strong taste of honey in the comb and the scent of water. Her thoughts of God had a homeliness that at times seemed shocking, in spite of their power, which could rescue her from terror or evil with an ease that astonished her.

— Elizabeth Goudge

Joy being of God was a living thing, a fountain not a cistern, one of those divine things that are possessed only as they overflow and flow away, and not easily come by because it must break into human life through the hard crust of sin and contingency. Joy came now here, now there, was held and escaped.

— Elizabeth Goudge

Loneliness made or ruined a man. It frightened him so that he must either sing and build in the face of the dark, like a bird or a beaver, or hide from it like a beast in his den. There were perhaps always only the two ways to go, God or the jungle.

— Elizabeth Goudge

Lovely phrases had lit candles in her mind, one after the other, till she felt intoxicated with the brightness.

— Elizabeth Goudge

... 'Many waters cannot quench love' was said of divine, not human, love, which the Dean knew was not always tough enough to survive the indifference of misery. That was one of the chief reasons why he struggled to do away with misery.

— Elizabeth Goudge

Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.

— Elizabeth Goudge

Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own," said Mary. "I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it.

— Elizabeth Goudge