Home > Author > S.J. Parris
1 " I realised with a prickle of discomfort why he bothered me: it was not so much that I resented the hearty backslapping bonhomie of English upper-class gentlemen, for I could tolerate it well enough in Sidney on his own. It was the way Sidney fell so easily into this strutting group of young men, where I could not, and the fear that he might in some ways prefer their company to mine. Once again, I felt that peculiar stab of loneliness that only an exile truly knows: the sense that I did not belong, and never would again. "
― S.J. Parris , Heresy (Giordano Bruno, #1)
2 " It is strange the way that someone who wants to find you guilty can start to make you believe in your own guilt, even when you know you are innocent. I was afraid I would condemn myself my mistake. "
3 " I do not believe that any book should be denied to the man who possesses the wisdom to understand it, Bruno, but that does not mean I am confused about where truth lies. "
4 " The Catholic chruch as threatened your life - do you not want revenge? Have you not sold your hatred to the Pretestant cause to work against the church that has hunted you?""No," I said simply. "I hate no one. I want only to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in my own way.""God has already laid out for us the mysteries of the universe, or as much as He permits us to understand. You think your way is better?""Better than these wars of dogma that have led men to burn and fillet one another across Europe for fifty years? Yes, I do.""Then what is it you believe?"I looked at him. "I believe that, in the end, even the devils will be pardoned. "
5 " But they argued as lawyers do, they twisted every answer I gave until it sounded like the opposite meaning, and I became so confused and afraid I found myself agreeing to statements that I knew were not true. "
6 " I am a mixture of contradictory elements. Equal parts earth and fire, melancholy and choler, I fear. But it is more that warmth and blue skies stir the blood, do you not think? "
7 " No," I said simply. "I hate no one. I want only to be left in peace to understand the mysteries of the universe in my own way. "
8 " If the universe is infinite, as I believe, then it must surely contain an infinite number of possibilities that we have not yet imagined or attempted to harness... "
― S.J. Parris , Prophecy (Giordano Bruno, #2)
9 " Once again, I felt that peculiar stab of loneliness that only an exile truly knows: the sense that I did not belong and never would again. "
10 " I have also learned that adventure is not always something to seek for its own sake. You don’t realise the value of a home until you no longer have one, "
11 " felt increasingly sure that God, whatever form He took, had not created us to kill and torture one another over the name we give Him. "
― S.J. Parris , The Secret Dead (Giordano Bruno, #0.5)
12 " I was not afraid to die for my beliefs, but not until I had determined which beliefs were worth dying for. "
13 " useful "
― S.J. Parris , Execution (Giordano Bruno, #6)
14 " Her name is a banner to rally every angry young man who believes his fortunes would be better if the clocks could be turned backwards to a golden England of yesteryear, before the break with Rome. An England that exists only in his imagination, but no matter – he will plunge the country into ruin to recover it. "
15 " I have not yet managed to understand this about the English; in Naples, if a man despises another, he spits in his face openly or insults his family, and then a fight ensues. Here, they shake one another’s hand, dine together, smile with their teeth only and wait until the other’s back is turned before striking their blow, and this agreed deception is called etiquette. "
― S.J. Parris , Sacrilege (Giordano Bruno, #3)
16 " All our past deeds, gentlemen, one way or another, will be washed up on the shore of the present. "
― S.J. Parris , Treachery (Giordano Bruno, #4)
17 " Because I believe God is bigger than the rules we impose on one another. "
18 " I kept my eyes on the ground. Did you never, at twenty-one, I wanted to ask him, find mischief in mocking a pompous, puffed-up buffoon twice your age, or were you already tearing people’s fingernails out for Jesus? "
― S.J. Parris , A Christmas Requiem
19 " A shutter is clicked, a flash goes off and you've stopped time. If just for a blink of an eye. And if these pictures have anything to say to the future generation, it is this 'I was here, I existed, I was young, I was happy and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture. "
― S.J. Parris
20 " Faith and politics are now one and the same,” he went on. “Perhaps it was always so, but it seems to have reached new extremes in our troubled century, do you not think? A man’s religion tells me where his political loyalties lie, far more than his place of birth or his language. "
