Home > Author > Morgan Llywelyn
21 " Concealed within the stones are frozen fires. Borne on vast waves of polychrome gas that attracted, discarded, formed, and reformed patterns of infinite complexity, the living sparks had taken their allotted places. They were burning before the beginning. They will burn after the end. Their fire is impervious to time. Time is a human concept. Creation is on a different scale. Every spark was a syllable spoken into silence, a miniscule portion of the great Word that became a roar of limitless power and exploded to create a universe. From chaos, cosmos. "
― Morgan Llywelyn , Only the Stones Survive
22 " The Romans did not like kings. We needed them, however. Over many generations we had evolved the pattern of living that best suited Celtic natures. Kings led noble warriors in battle that defined tribal territory and gave men a shape for their pride. Less aggressive common people farmed the land and did the labor of the tribe. Druids were responsible for the intangible essentials upon which all else depended. Man and Earth and Otherworld were thus held in balance----until the coming of Caesar, who wanted to destroy our warriors and our druids so he could make the rest of us his slaves. "
― Morgan Llywelyn
23 " No'm he aint ill. Not unless laziness is a sickness. If it is, I'd say he's close to dying tomorrow. "
24 " Although Erc was bitterly disappointed, there was another route to prestige. He possessed gifts of the mind sufficient to gain admittance to the order of Druids, the intellectual class of Celtic society. Members of the order were not practitioners of a specific religion, nor were they priests in the Christian sense of the word. The Greeks were more nearly correct by describing Druids as poet-philosophers. "
― Morgan Llywelyn , Brendan
25 " We have freedom of the press; I think it’s guaranteed in the Constitution or something.” The "
― Morgan Llywelyn , 1999: A Novel of the CelticTiger and the Search for Peace
26 " Men who have died in battle are rarely good to look upon. No matter how splendid their appearance at the apex of heroism, when the soul has fled it takes all grace and beauty with it. Bowels empty, mouths gape, bellies swell, dead eyes gleam fish-belly white. Nothing visible remains of glory. In the tents of death all men belong to the same tribe. "
― Morgan Llywelyn , 1014: Brian Boru the Battle for Ireland
27 " The achievements and discoveries of a great but dying society can bring light to a young and growing one. "
28 " Io non ci ho mai tenuto a diventare un capo" rispose Grania. "Sono sempre andata dove volevo andare, e quando mi guardavo indietro vedevo che gli altri mi stavano seguendo. "
― Morgan Llywelyn , Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas
29 " The old chieftain’s eyes were bleak. “Is that all you have left to offer me from your bag of tricks, druid? Hope?” “Hope is priceless,” Coran assured him. “Hope is what’s left at the bottom of the bag,” Hundred Battles said. “Like lint. "
― Morgan Llywelyn , The Isles of the Blest
30 " Grace O'Malley is a crafty devil. "
31 " He had seen lakes and rivers, but Connla had never seen an ocean, and its very size was beyond his comprehension. “Where does it end?” he asked Blathine. “It does not end. The ocean is everything. All the land is merely an interruption in the sea.” Her words made no sense; such things could not be possible. "
32 " As if it had heard his thoughts, the dolphin said, “You love life, that is why you sought to flee from death to a place where there is no death. If you love life, you must keep worshipping the god of life with your body, which means you must fight to stay alive even when it looks hopeless. Give up, and life will turn its back on you. "
33 " How do you strike fire without flint?” Connla wanted to know. “The sun has no flints,” Blathine replied. “Yet each day it brings fire to warm the earth.” Shaking his head ruefully, Connla said, “I see I will get no simple answers from you.” “There are no simple answers!” she chortled. “How quickly you are learning! "
34 " Will so many uncushioned facts piled upon one another eventually erect an emotional wall between the event and the observer, so that people no longer feel an individual responsibility? "
― Morgan Llywelyn , 1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War
35 " The longing and impatience of boyhood give way to the longing and discontent of manhood, and the future you anticipate is still just around the corner. "
36 " But my mind keeps on thinking,” Connla offered hopefully. “As long as I am thinking, I must be alive.” The ant pondered this. “There are many who never think, yet are considered to be alive,” it said. “Then what is ‘being alive’? "
37 " Elizabeth now calls herself the Supreme Governor of the Church of Ireland - can you believe such a joke? As if God reached down and put his hand on her head, anointing her? A woman?" He added this last with special emphasis, as if it were the worst crime charged to Elizabeth Tudor's name. "
38 " Why did you not die?” He searched his memory, trying to find an answer for her. “When the sword bit through my neck, I thought surely I was dead. Then—then a sort of strength seemed to come to me, from somewhere. And I found myself having a strange conversation with an ant about life and death. The ant claimed one does not die as long as one is being remembered—” “—and loved,” Blathine finished for him. “That is how it is with mortals, Finvarra! I see what has happened here. Someone in the world from which I brought Connla Fiery Hair is still thinking about him and loving him. "