14 Quotes by Monica Furlong

All this I told Juniper, and she listened in the quiet, dispassionate way she had when you told her something truly terrible. It was as if she was joining things together in her mind, making some act of love and healing where otherwise all was violence and despair.

The journey inward is what gives meaning to the life outside ourselves. Not in any static, dogmatic, once-for-all way either, but in a way that grows and develops and changes to meet different circumstances, different stages of development. Contemplation is not an optional extra -- it is, as much as action, part of the very stuff of being human." 

What is difficult about learning - any kind of learning - is that you have to give up what you know already to make room for the new ideas. Children are much better at it than grownups.

Here you will never learn anything just because girls do it. But it’s a pity not to do things just because girls do them. Work must be done for its own sake.

Marian, in her boy’s clothing, sat astride a fallen treetrunk near the Trysetell Tree, her eyes fixed on Robin, who stood perfectly still, waiting. He looked at her, smiling the smile Dummy had noticed before whenever he was in danger, as if he were living entirely in that moment of time without thought for the past or future, and was thoroughly enjoying himself.” “Gilbert wrapped Jehan in a cloak of Lincoln green and laid him tenderly in the Oratory, heaping the bright snow about him.

Wise Child: Why don't you beat me then?Juniper: I can't be bothered.

I want to be special,” I said obstinately at last.“So does everyone else. So we have to take turns.”‘But some people are more special than others, aren’t they?“Juniper suddenly got extremely irritated. "The really special ones are the ones who don’t even think about it,” she said.

People are like a pack of dogs sometimes. All right one by one, but together... together they do awful things they don't mean to do.

What is difficult about learning – any kind of learning – is that you have to give up what you know already to make room for the new ideas. Children are much better at it than grownups.