A storm is coming. I'll go check the cathedral for cracks. You should take Tom back before he gets wet.
God forbid anything should happen to your precious cathedral.
What did you say?
I said cathedral first, family second.
That's not true. It's my work.
It's your life, Jack.
I was in love once. Love is a terrible thing. I know, it struck me dead.
Did she die?
He hanged himself. And I found him. I loved him and he loved me. How could it be a sin? But I confessed and my confessor made me denounce him to the others. And after he took his life, my confessor made me fix things so that I would never be able to sin like that again.
Is your confessor still alive?
Oh yes.
You should denounce him to the Church.
He is the Church.
I've been an ass and an idiot.
Well, if that's a sin, we'll all burn in hell. What about?
Aliena, the roof, everything that is important in my life.
What you said this morning was right. You're right, you're not Tom. You're Jack, which is something much better. Tom was a dreamer with enough faith to give his dreams weight, but you... you have an exceptional gift. And you have determination instead of faith. We all need faith, Jack. It makes it easier for God to help us. And Aliena believes in you more than you do.
[Jack scoffs]
How much faith do you have in her?
What do you mean, Prior?
She left an hour ago with Richard and an army of men to retake Shiring.
[furious, following his deposing as Earl of Shiring] She betrayed me! My own wife!
If you kick a dog, it may someday bite you. Your mother never learned that and now she burns in eternal fire.
Nonsense! She's in Heaven, kneeling before the throne of God!
She's in Hell, William, and rumor has it you put her there.
[afraid] What can I do? I'll build a chapel in exchange for her salvation.
Too late for that. All you can do is save yourself now.
How?! I'll do anything! [Waleran raises an eyebrow] This isn't fair!
No, it isn't. Very little in this life is fair when the forces of evil are strong...and make no mistake about it, it's the Devil we're fighting and the scores are even.
Citizens of Kingsbridge... you have brought the wrath of God upon yourselves. You harbour liars, witches, sodomites and thieves.
And unholy priests! Because of your treachery, England has been steeped in blood for 16 years. Soldiers have died, wives mourned, sons grown fatherless into manhood and then gone themselves to fight and to die. This town has been burned, its citizens slaughtered... and yet, still we survive. We build a cathedral like none has ever seen before in praise of God and our abilities and our faith in some peaceful tomorrow. And in spite of you, Waleran Bigod, the people of Kingsbridge will find that peace.
When we began work on the Kingsbridge Cathedral, King Stephen was newly crowned and the Princess Maud fled to France with her newborn son, Henry. For years, England was torn by war and great suffering. King Stephen is since dead and Maud's son now rules as King Henry II of England. Now we have peace and hope for a bright tomorrow. And for these gifts and our beautiful church, I thank God, our king, the people of Kingsbridge and several generations of tireless workers. But the cathedral is not finished and nor will it ever be. just as human perfection is something we all strive for and can never attain, so this church will forever be changing, growing, crumbling at times... an ongoing legacy of our feeble efforts to touch God. A cathedral, my friends, is... is neither stone nor statues nor even a place of prayer. It is... a continuum of creation... beautiful work that, pray God, will never end.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The Pillars of the Earth pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
