These are a collection of quotes and excerpts from the 2019 novel Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliot. It recounts the life of Joan of Arc from the beginnings of her patriotic stirrings to the moment she was executed. It features a collection of real testimonies that were taken at her trial from herself and from those who had come into contact with her.
“Each decision that we make comes with a hidden price. We’re never told what it is we may be asked to sacrifice”
“But I learned that life is more complex, that the door between this world and the next is sometimes left ajar, and that each of us is more, far more, than we are told we are.”
“I did not tell myself that I had other desires instead, desires that I fought against, desires I could not name, desires that spoke an unknown tongue, desires that left a flame.”
“Was it love, with its tender, unknowable knot, or madness chanting its lullaby out in the meadow beneath the blue sky?”
“I was beset by my own nature, possessed by a ruthless and persistent urge, as if there were another me waiting to emerge from all that was constraining.”
“Who can say why some arrive and then depart forgotten while others fashion history.”