It is important for a woman to have the duplicity to make good use of whatever gifts she might have, however valueless they might seem… You have to have the inner strength to pursue your...

In the forest you may find yourself lost, without companions. You may come to a river which is not on a map. You may lose sight of your quarry, and forget why you are there....

I don’t know, Benes. I’m not sure I’ve ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.’ He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his...

The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own...

Of all the things I dislike, I hate women worst.

Sir, you do understand that – officially – I’m not actually a centurion. I haven’t even been assigned to a legion yet.’The general continued writing as he spoke. ‘What was the name?”Corbulo, sir.”Corbulo, you have...

Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line...

Mama says love is a sickness of the heart. Only the weak fall under its spell.

(The golden goose has died, my prince turned into a frog, the Kingdom is lost, everyone has turned into stone and I am locked in the tower)

Forget the threat of Hell’s infernal flames. The true torture would condemn a man to wait and wait and wait – for an eternity

After all, that’s why we read historical fiction-to be transported to another time, and to be astonished at ancient people’s lives and traditions, just as they would probably be astonished at ours.

lightning thief was good but the sea of monsters is better and has more action!

True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.

The night of the fireworks changed the course of many lives in England, though no one suspected the dark future as hundreds of courtiers stared, faces upturned in delight, at the starbursts of crimson, green,...

… those sectaries in Europe who are always expecting the end of the world, but who hope that, after the earth has been consumed by fire, they will be seated in glory: grilled a little,...

I thought the force of my wanting must wake ye, surely. And then ye did come. . .” He stopped, looking at me with eyes gone soft and dark. “Christ, Claire, ye were so beautiful,...

How easy it is to do wrong when there is someone else to blame.

Sometimes, the choices we make have devastating consequences

She had known for months now that something or someone would have to break to end this painful stalemate they were locked in. She had never guessed it would be Dominic. She had never guessed...

Their eyes locked.They could see into each other’s souls. This was why she had been bored.

Humans will never be in charge of this world, as long as dust and weeds do as they please.

I want you forever. I will always be with you. I will always love you. I will love, honor, and cherish you for all eternity.

It’s finding out where we came from that helps guide us to where we are going.

Not having any drink about ain’t the same as not understanding the need for one. Times like these change a body’s perspective.

Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women...

happy is the nation without a history

My dear boy, in Ireland the midwife uses one hand to hold the baby’s best fighting arm from the font water, and grips its jaws with the other lest the goes to litigation about it....

She gently bit his bottom lip, his ear. Worked her way down his body until she reached the inside of his thigh, then bit hard, breaking the skin, drawing blood. “My mark,” she said, looking...

I guess I’d rather have a truthful neighbor who says he hates me than a lyin’ one who claims he loves me.

Rumors are the children of truth.

I doubt very much we will have to worry about that after today!

Next time — we will roll out the red carpet for you in the United States of Arabia, my brethren!

She’s got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.

The curtains were not yet drawn and with the moonlight spreading across the room, I could see clearly. I undressed and slipped a soft cotton gown over my naked body. I pulled the blanket off...

Most of [her ashes] fell into the river in a long gray curtain. But some was caught by the wind and blown upward toward the blue spring sky where it swirled a moment in the...

I do not need to understand words to know he is disappointed I am not a boy. Some things need no translation. And I know, because my body remembers without benefit of words, that men...

It’s history as it should have happened. It’s history made better.

It was so cold. In the monastery. Sometimes the wind came from the sea with ice in it… It could freeze the skin off your face. Once the snow was so deep we couldn’t get...

You must regard this deviation from your plan as part of the adventure that you sought when you decided to embark on it in the first place…Absence of certainty is its essence. People…who choose to...

The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true.

9 November 1989. A day nobody would forget. She had heard rumours about the wall.

Last night I dreamt Moses and I were rowing underwater.We could breathe and talk to one another.We rowed past schools of fish and sea anemones and Moses named them for me.”—Jules Finn

Did you ever hear the one about how every living woman dies three times? Once when she is seduced of her virginity, once when she is seduced of her freedom (I believe they call it...

Auctus took the initiative again, eyeballing his foe as he strode towards him. Indavara bounced up and down on his toes and waited. His options were limited; he needed time to see what Auctus could...

In Venice, things not always as they first appear. I contemplate this observation from my post on the aft deck of one of Master Fumagalli’s gondolas, taking in the panorama of bridges, domes, bell towers,...

How can one fight for a love that acts as the enemy?

To those of you who are enslaved by your past, may my story set you free. For youth is innocent and its beauty is to always be cherished.

Messages continued to arrive from the Earl of Warwick, urging Londoners to hold firm for King Harry. Marguerite d’Anjou and her son were expected to land at any time, while from St Albans, Edward sent...

There is an arch supported by four vast columns. Etched over hundreds and hundreds of yards of stone, furlongs of stone, there are names: “Who are these, these? The men who died in this battle?””No....

This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray.””Go astray?””Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure.