When I chose a design and quotation for a unique Mary Stewart locket, it got me thinking about sharing Mary Stewart quotes on this blog – there may not always be enough time to (re-)read one of her books but we can hopefully spare a moment to enjoy one of her quotes.
So here is a short – really short – sentence from My Brother Michael. It appears in chapter 5, when Simon Lester and Camilla Haven are driving to Arachova at the foot of Mount Parnassus in Greece.
The night swooped by, full of stars.
I think this is beautiful. The quote also feels so glamorous to me and I don’t even really know why – perhaps for me it has connotations of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, both cool, both poised, both the last word in sophistication, driving an open-top car in the film To Catch a Thief?
(I know. An open-top car for sunny days not starry nights. It must be the swooping that is the link? Is swooping glamorous?)
Or is it simply that there is, perhaps, an implication here that Camilla and Simon are speeding forward purposefully in their lives?
I don’t know what makes me adore this quote so much but I do.
Okay, does anyone want to swap quotes? I’d love to hear about your favourite literary quotes – by Mary Stewart or any other author.
Mary Queen of Plots 
The thing i’d like to mention in reply are the two parting gifts that Mary gives her readers at the very end of Madam, Will You Talk (the painting of ‘David’ that Charity & Richard discover together which turns out to be the work of the murdered Emmanuel Bernstein) and My Brother Michael (the realization that the gold sovereign left at the feet of Apollo was given not by Nigel, but by Simon’s brother). Sorry, i know there aren’t exact quotes that convey the feeling, but I felt in both cases they were little gems, and they made me smile.
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Hi Jim,
I agree, these are lovely, poignant parts of the novels.
In Madam, Will You Talk?, I love the slow realisation with regard to the painting, seeing a resemblance to the boy David, then recognising that it is a portrayal of future King David off to face Goliath, then discovering the artist is the murdered man…
“And so it ended, where it had begun, with the little Jewish painter whose death had been so late, but so amply avenged. And, ten days later, with The Boy David carefully boxed in the back of the Riley, my husband and I set our faces to the South, and the Isles of Gold.”
This is a fabulous ending to the novel!
I haven’t looked up the passage from My Brother Michael, since I have read it so recently, but that is another moment of stillness and connection: past linking with present, and full of pathos.
Thanks for mentioning these passages Jim, they are great examples of Mary’s writing.
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