Quotes from book

The Pillars of the Earth

“Proportion is the heart of beauty.”

“When things are simple, fewer mistakes are made. The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.”

“But desperate people find courage.”

“The duck swallows the worm, the fox kills the duck, the men shoot the fox, and the devil hunts the men.”

“But the lesson of Abraham's story is that God demands the best we have to offer, that which is most precious to us.”

“To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color.”

“She was unique: there was something abnormal about her, and it was that abnormal something that made her magnetic.”

“Hunger is the best seasoning.”

“She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.”

“I imagined it. I wrote it. But I guess I never thought I'd see it.”

“When you're thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.”

“She wanted to say 'I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage'…”

“Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.”

“The most expensive part of building is the mistakes.”

“Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended.”