Ruth Downie Quotes

#1. It was a mystery why the army bothered with a signal communication system when its men were so good at gossip.

Ruth Downie

#2. Why did so many die in the night? As though they wished to kiss us and deliver us with sweet dreams before taking their leave of the world.

Ruth Downie

#3. British rain was rarely that simple. For days on end, instead of falling, it simply hung around in the air like a wife waiting for you to notice she was sulking.

Ruth Downie

#4. A little knowledge would unlock the gates to vast and unsuspected gates of ignorance.

Ruth Downie

#5. Women are not always what we seem to be. What our reputations would tell you. Nor do we only exist in reference to our fathers, husbands, and sons.

Ruth Downie

#6. Getting angry with her cousin, she reminded herself, was like getting angry with a sheep for being stupid. It ruined your day and the sheep was too dim to care.

Ruth Downie

#7. That was one of the bad things about being able to read: people could nag you from a great distance.

Ruth Downie

#8. But how can an ordinary girl not know this? Had Varana's mother not bothered to teach her anything at all or just shouted complaints from a distance while her children fought and argued amongst themselves like wolf cubs?

Ruth Downie

#9. I seem to remember sitting on a golden bench, and she started chattering about the sunset, or something. She seemed quite happy so I let her get on with it. Then she got hold of my hand and asked me what I was thinking about. So I said, "The treatment of anal fistulae".

Ruth Downie

#10. But, when she was alone, someone rapped on the door and she found herself on her feet, knife in hand, before she had time to reason with her fear.

Ruth Downie

#11. They say opposites attract, but like meets like, too.

Ruth Downie

#12. They had run out of words.... Then he and the Lamp were gone.... Ruse swallowed hard and then began counting bones again in the dark. Then when he reached the right elbow he stopped, and started counting suspects.

Ruth Downie

#13. [regarding the sacrifice] It was all very professionally done, even to a man whose religion consisted mostly of half formed and unanswered questions, it was strangely reassuring.

Ruth Downie

#14. Wriggled to avoid the lump that always seemed directly under

Ruth Downie

#15. There were many things a man might think he should be told when a woman agreed to marry him. She had choose not to mention several of them

Ruth Downie

#16. Quid nomen tibi est? She was not about to offer her name up to a stranger. It was almost the only thing she possessed that nobody had stolen.

Ruth Downie

#17. You can't do anything with a man whose mind is gone.

Ruth Downie

#18. What color is time? Where do the thoughts of the dead go? How is it diseases spread but miracles don't? Have you ever thought of that?

Ruth Downie

#19. One of the many difficult things about women was that they tended to pick the most unsuitable times to tell you something they considered to be important, and then became irrationally upset when you failed to remember it.

Ruth Downie

#20. He tried the diversion of reciting all the bones in the body, working down the left side, down to the toes and then back up. Each toe and finger separately, just to waste time. He lost his place somewhere on the right hand.

Ruth Downie

#21. Even now he could not say in his heart of hearts for which side he would draw his blade when he was finally called upon. What was a child of two worlds to do?

Ruth Downie

#22. Such was the cost of dealing with the Romans: even when one fought against them, the stain of their violence licked and crackled at the soul like a fire about to engulf an entire forest.

Ruth Downie

#23. And leave me alone when I tell ya to. I will have things to do that are private. I cannot always have you trailing around with me like a strand of goose grass.

Ruth Downie

#24. But she's only a woman!" The watch captain shook his head again. "So was Helen of Troy, sir. Look what she started.

Ruth Downie

#25. Sparrows and pigeons and a blackbird were celebrating the morning in the courtyard.

Ruth Downie

#26. Britannia's big enough to count, but remote enough not to matter.

Ruth Downie

#27. Back from where? you're not going out again and leaving me here are you?? Holy Hercules I sound like somebody's wife

Ruth Downie

#28. Socrates was a wise man. Surveying the goods on a market stall, the great one was said to have remarked, What a lot of things a man doesn't need!

Ruth Downie

#29. There's no good in moping girl, there's work to be done... Have you forgotten, nobody likes a person who feels sorry for herself.

Ruth Downie

#30. Talking with this girl is like trying to catch fleas, you never know which way she was going to jump.

Ruth Downie