In my book 'The Winter Sea,' set north of Aberdeen, I couldn't just ignore the fact some people there - especially the people in the past - would speak the Doric.

Susanna Kearsley

I believe there are no random meetings in our lives – that everyone we touch, who touches us, has been put in our path for a reason. The briefest encounter can open a door, or heal a wound, or close a circle that was started long before your birth.

Susanna Kearsley

circles doors believe

But life, if nothing else, had taught her promises weren't always to be counted on, and what appeared at first a shining chance might end in bitter disappointment.

Susanna Kearsley

shining disappointment promise

The past can teach us, nurture us, but it cannot sustain us. The essence of life is change, and we must move ever forward or the soul will wither and die.

Susanna Kearsley

life past moving

It's too easy, you see, to get trapped in the past. The past is very seductive. People always talk about the mists of time, you know, but really it's the present that's in a mist, uncertain. The past is quite clear, and warm, and comforting. That's why people often get stuck there.

Susanna Kearsley

seductive people past

Tis action moves the world....[in] the game of chess, mind that: ye cannot leave your men to stand unmoving on the board and hope to win. A soldier must first step upon the battlefield if does mean to cross it.

Susanna Kearsley

winning mean moving

Hope rarely enters into it. 'Tis action moves the world.

Susanna Kearsley

action world moving

So, you see, my heart is held forever by this place," she said. "I cannot leave.

Susanna Kearsley

my-heart forever heart

I do promise that you will survive this. Faith, my own heart is so scattered round the country now, I marvel that it has the strength each day to keep me standing. But it does,' she said, and drawing in a steady breath she pulled back just enough to raise a hand to wipe Sophia's tears. 'It does. And so will yours.' 'How can you be so sure?' 'Because it is a heart, and knows no better.

Susanna Kearsley

heart country hands

A grieving person's like a person treading in deep water--if they've nothing to hold on to, they lose hope. They slide right under.

Susanna Kearsley

deep-water slides grieving

The world becomes a wider place, with but a little learning.

Susanna Kearsley

littles world

Tis never the place, but the people one shares it with who are the cause of our happiest memories.

Susanna Kearsley

causes memories people

These are your beautiful days, Julia Beckett," he promised softly.

Susanna Kearsley

beckett julia beautiful

Ever try to hold a butterfly? It can't be done. You damage them," he said. 'As gentle as you try to be, you take the powder from their wings and they won't ever fly the same. It's kinder to let them go.

Susanna Kearsley

break-up letting-go relationship

..the fields might fall to fallow and the birds might stop their song awhile; the growing things might die and lie in silence under snow, while through it all the cold sea wore its face of storms and death and sunken hopes...and yet unseen beneath the waves a warmer current ran that, in its time, would bring the spring.

Susanna Kearsley

spring song lying

Ye'll never best your fears until ye face them

Susanna Kearsley

faces

When I meet a wind I cannot fight , I can do naught but set my sails to let it take me where it will.

Susanna Kearsley

sail fighting wind

Whatever time we have," he said, "it will be time enough.

Susanna Kearsley

enough said

Knowing that the battle will not end the way he wishes does not make it any less worthwhile the fight.

Susanna Kearsley

fighting knowing wish

There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment.

Susanna Kearsley

work-out play thinking

Men who watch, and say little, very often are much wiser than the men they serve.

Susanna Kearsley

littles men watches