Colleen Mccullough said this quote

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.

~ Colleen Mccullough

Belief doesn't rest on proof or existence...it rests on faith...without faith there is nothing.

~ Colleen Mccullough

Suddenly the thought that the end of her life was imminent shocked him; it was one thing to pity someone he didn't know, quite another to face the same dilemma with someone he knew intimately. That was the trouble with beds. They turned strangers into intimates more quickly than ten years of polite teas in parlours.

~ Colleen Mccullough

He owe his wife a debt he couldn't hope to pay with any coin save one: open the cage and let the bird fly.

~ Colleen Mccullough