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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 3d1c009 | According to Montagne legend, the mountain has forever been the abode of giants. Long ago a traveling pair of sorcerers, husband and wife, scaled the cliff into the valley, and the woman cured the giants' chilblains with ointments and the gift of fire. In gratitude, the giants built Chateau de Montagne out of the living rock of Ancienne, and from that castle the couple founded the kingdom of Montagne, using their magic to shield the country.. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| a161f51 | I could not help but wonder, that night and later, why my father would even mention my marrying someone who came from a country that my mother so obviously disliked. I recall wondering that distinctly, while somehow missing the obvious connection that this boy was a prince and that I, the niece of a king, was a princess. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 97d0fc7 | That is the delusion of which I speak! You wish the joys of true love upon every milkmaid and stable boy in your land, and yet you consign yourself and another to lives of pure misery that you might possess a well-proportioned ballroom. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| d07872c | Hell is paved with good intentions. Heaven is paved with Oreos. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 2f6603e | If in this narrative I have not yet paid Queen Sophia adequate consideration, particularly given the unrelenting domination the woman would soon claim over every single element of my life, I offer this simple yet honest explanation: for fifteen unbroken years, my mother had toiled to protect me from the woman. It is remarkable, as I reflect upon my childhood, how utterly unaware I was of this situation while it transpired, the truth coming .. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 1a2668f | Lord Frederick had been a stalwart member of the Montagne court since at least the time of my grandfather; this I knew. Even more, he had the marvellous ability to pull peppermint drops from my ears, which used to entertain me for hours. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 24abe32 | So it was that my life passed from the joyous realm of heaven to the choking and inescapable tortures of hell. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| a3c9ba7 | How could Paolo think the queen and her ilk were my people? I had no more relation to them than a pigeon does to a flock of swans - or a vortex of vultures, which the castle's denizens better resembled in both attire and attitude. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| f42ea35 | As for the queen, I had no more interest in her company than in plunging my face into a nest of hornets. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 98407d3 | My downfall, inevitably, was triggered by food. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 45e8273 | I mulled on the tower-bound princess whose lover employed her hair as rope. My own curly locks - one of my better features, I will admit, better being a relative term - hung just past my shoulders, and barely draped over the windowsill. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 5697b81 | No matter how I prayed, no fairy godmother appeared. No elf or leprechaun or world-weary wizard materialised to provide the secret weapon against my foe. I remained alone in a mouse-infested cell, empty but for a pallet and the nightdress into which I now had to struggle. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 66ef155 | I could not help but notice that in this regard the book, inanimate though it was, cared more for my welfare than any human in the castle. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| a86deea | Finally I halted, my cloak soiled with grease and jam. Why was it that jam always coated me so? | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| fc76e71 | The day of the ball was spent preparing me much as one prepares a goose for Christmas, with the same ultimate effect. | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| 2e542e3 | I trust you are enjoying your stay in our castle?" I asked at last. "Would that I were, Your Highness. But I am afraid my sleep last night was quite troubled. This morning I identified the source of my bruises" - here he reached into a pocket of his waistcoat - "as a pea that had been tucked beneath my mattress." | ben | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | |
| 4f0f4e6 | Night soil oozed onto my cloak, and I wondered why all my adventures involved foul odour. Why could I not for once frolic in a meadow of flowers, or escape in a hamper of fresh laundry? No, I must endure night soil and prison cells and unwashed soldiers... | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | ||
| d0d1f02 | When the destiny of a nation is in a woman's bedroom, the best place for the historian is in the antechamber. -- CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE | Eleanor Herman | ||
| bec9dcf | But as the late- seventeenth-century philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz said, 'To be neutral is rather like someone who lives in the middle of a house and is smoked out from below and drenched with urine from above. | neutral neutrality | Eleanor Herman | |
| 817f711 | Alex looks around at Heph, at Diodotus, at handsome Telekles and round-faced Phrixos, | Eleanor Herman | ||
| e5f1110 | Life is a risk, who knows this better than me? Who knows more surely that babies die easily, that children fall ill from the least cause, that royal blood is fatally weak, that death walks behind my family like a faithful black hound? | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 812b810 | Joan was a young woman who tried to walk her own path in the world of men, just as my great-aunt told me. And it led to this cold tower, this swan dive, this death. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 0534a4e | A single man's imperfect conscience can never be superior to centuries of tradition. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 7653595 | Mas, entre nos, nunca houve tempo para as palavras de amor; a maior parte do nosso tempo foi gasta em despedidas. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 80dcb00 | They were all wrong and the dreams and seeings were right. And there was nothing wrong with me. I felt my shoulders go back and my head come up, and I smiled at the doctor and promised to be prompt at his house in the morning; and as I smiled I sensed all the familiar strength - the strength which I named as the Lacey strength, Beatrice strength - come back to me, and I looked him in his pale blue eyes and thought to myself: you and I are e.. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 06b6d7f | One little boy, and he a bastard,' Anne said thoughtfully. 'One little girl of six, one elderly Queen and a King in the prime of his life.' She looked up at the two of us, dragging her gaze away from her own pale face in the water. 'What's going to happen?' She asked. 'Something has to happen. What's it going to be? | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 2e7b090 | It is hopeless, I cannot say it. I give a little whooping cough and raise my eyes to his face. I cannot help myself, I hate him like an enemy, I cannot stop myself dreaming of his enemy, I cannot say his name, I cannot possibly marry him. But Henry, prosaic and real, understands exactly what is happening, and gives me a sharp corrective pinch with his fingers in the soft palm of my hand. He uses his nails, he digs into my flesh, I yelp at t.. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 2cdeea3 | Compared with the rest of us she was silver, while we were pewter, a common mixture of lead and tin. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 4da648f | I am fit to capture a unicorn, and I should not be so questioned. | virginity virtue | Philippa Gregory | |
| 0ce2c38 | The truth is the last thing that matters. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| f510304 | We may be of the same family, but that is the very reason why we are not friends, for we are rivals for the throne. What quarrels are worse than family quarrels? | history | Philippa Gregory | |
| ab01ae2 | Anne gave a little giggle. 'Oh what a tragedy Queen! You can smile while your heart is breaking because you are a woman, and a courtier and a Howard. That's three reasons for being the most deceitful creature on God's earth. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| a95a5de | It is luck to love someone who is free to love you in return. But I don't. I just desire him, desire him and desire him; and I wait for it to burn out. Everything I have ever gained has always turned to ashes after a little while. Why should this be any different? | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 30b7830 | Well hear this,' she hissed in my ear. 'Hear this Mary. I am playing my own game and I don't want you interrupting. Nobody will know anything until I am ready to tell them, and then they will know everything too late.' 'You're going to make him love you?' Abruptly she released me and I gripped my elbow and arm where the bones ached. 'I'm going to make him marry me.' she said flatly. 'And if you so much as breathe a word to anyone, then I w.. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 37af196 | It was Anne who was before the table like a prisoner before the bar. She did not stand with her head bowed as I always did. Anne stood with her head high, one dark eyebrow slightly raised, and she met my Uncle's glare as if she were his equal. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| feb1148 | If a woman is interested in her own struggle into identity and power, then she will be interested in other women. The lives of these, and other women, show me what a woman can do even without formal power, education, or rights, in a world dominated by men. They are inspirational examples of the strength of the female spirit. | identity | Philippa Gregory | |
| b1d4909 | But you will break Anne's heart.' 'Her heart has to break and her spirit has to break if she is to be any use to her family.' My mother said coldly | Philippa Gregory | ||
| ba3c5a4 | Her sadness had given her a serenity which had not been there before. It was as if she had learned a hard lesson: that chances in life would not fall into her lap like ripe cherries. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| e621fe5 | He smiled at me, his wolfish smile. 'We are making a new order,' he said, 'a new world. Everything is changing, and here we are, at the very front of the change.' 'If I refuse?' I asked, my voice very thing. He gave me his most cynical smile that left his eyes as cold as wet coals. 'You don't,' he said simply. 'The world's not changed that much yet. Men still rule. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| e5ce96a | She smiled an empty bitter smile that did not reach her eyes, 'Do you think it can be worse than this? I cannot be charged with treason, I am the Queen of England, I am England. I cannot be divorced, I am the wife of the King. He has run mad this spring and he will recover by autumn. And all I have to do is get through this summer.' 'The Boleyn summer,' I said. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| caa3237 | She's ice and ambition and she would see you on the gallows before surrendering her ambition. Anne has dazzled him, and dazzled the court, and dazzled even you.' 'Not me.' George said gently. 'Uncle likes her best,' I said resentfully. 'He likes nobody, but he wonders how far she might go.' 'We all wonder that. And what price she's prepared to pay. Especially if it's me that pays it.' 'It's not an easy dance she's leading.' George admitted... | Philippa Gregory | ||
| 2d8e1d7 | Nikoi ne triabva da me s'zhaliava. Mogat da me obichat, ili da me mraziat, ili da se strakhuvat ot men. No nikoga niama da pozvolia na niakogo da me s'zhaliava. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| cd2cf2b | Look, you can't fight everyone... You have to choose where you belong and rest there. | Philippa Gregory | ||
| a033e65 | Perhaps there is a God like firelight, but all we can see is the shadows that we cast ourselves when we walk in front of the fire. Then we see great leaping shadows and think that this is God, but really it is only our own image. | Philippa Gregory |