Everything changes except human behavior and its consequences.

No matter how many romantic poems you recite, no matter how many glorious tales of love you read, how can you really understand the condition if you’ve never found yourself in it?

Atty’s eyes rested on Darby with all the subtlety of a dog watching his food bowl being filled!

Isabel Valverde was coming home. The brief, terrible letter from her brother had brought her across five thousand miles of ocean, from the New World to the Old, and during the long voyage she thought...

Your love of glory must conquer your will to survive; or why fight at all? Why not be a smith, a brewer, a wool merchant? Why are you in the contest, if not to win,...

The others moved in like a wake of vultures, ready to devour their prey. she had seen it on television once. ‘Scavengers,’ Tatinek called them. They swoop in and feed off the carcasses of animals...

The great Sugambrian shrugged. “I did. I supposed you’ve proven your worth. But no man should have to kill his own father. I should know.

A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.

Soeur Seraphina gently removed my lace fontanges. It was named for the King’s mistress Angelique de Fontanges, who had lost her hat while hunting one day and had hastily tied up her curls with her...

This is a story of Africa. A pioneer woman’s journey north was merely the beginning.

Come out, Yamiko,come out…

I could faintly smell the ocean. I imagined being one of the old oak trees standing there swaying in the wind and braving all sorts of weather. I pondered what they had seen in the...

Its magnificence was indescribable, and its magnitude was inconceivable. She felt overwhelmed in the presence of its greatness. Pg 87

Down in the cellar the Gestapo were licensed to practice was the Ministry of Justice called ‘heightened interrogation’. The rules had been drawn up by civilised men in warm offices and they stipulated the presence...

What I was caught up in, I dimly understood, was the embodiment of history

I have lived recklessly, gambled my income away at the horse races, gone whoring, have been more drunk than sober, beaten men to a pulp with my hands, have had a man’s nose cut off...

Please do not mistake me for a twopenny villain. I do nothing without a purpose.

Once a man is truly dead and carried pale and cold across the Styx–once Old Bones has put an arm about his shoulders and walked him through the Gate into Darkness–might Science yet summon him...

True vice, my lady, would frighten us all, if it did not wear the mask of virtue. (p.56)

Between the sands of time and tradition is a multitude of truths untold.

Kevin looks at me and I know he isn’t seeing the little girl I use to be, all pigtails and gangly limbs. He isn’t seeing my mother’s daughter or even my mother anymore. As his...

To order a wife by mail seemed strange to him indeed; so strange he could only open the letters in the confidential cloak of night, undisturbed by even the servants…” Lord Hartford’s thoughts at the...

Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England

Today’s breakfast consist of rice and a piece of bread fried in a bit of salt pork grease. At least I have my memories of grand banquets and fine foods, but this is all the...

When giving up is not an option, you survive at any cost.

Brick walls towered over her. Decrepit staircases crowded about her. Nothing had changed. The line there, the lessons there, the rape there. Shouldn’t the place be crimson with blood and black with shame?

What one of us wants we all want. You a man of the earth as you are, you ought to have known we hunt in packs. And now I come to finish you.

One night when the moon was full, I explained to you about how the moon controls the tides, and you said I was like the moon and you were the sea, always following me about....

THE FIGHTING IN THE PEACH ORCHARD AT GETTYSBURGPROLOGUE”The same young men who crowded each other as they faced the recruiters’ tables now crowded each other as they died.

I make up as little as possible. I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the...

The lines in the corners of her eyes spoke of years of wisdom, as a tree with the number of rings increasing with each passing year. She was a small frame of a woman with...

Why do you assume I’m human?I wasn’t born; I was created just like this.First I was an idea.Then I came into being, charged with a very important task.I’ve come to find the monster.

What do we do if we come across trouble, sir?’ Cahill asked, slapping at a fly. ‘As much as I enjoy giving the rebel turds a walloping, it should be down to the Militia to...

Catch on fire with enthusiasm, and people will come for miles to watch you burn

The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you.

I was too far away to hear what was said but I saw in Val’s eyes the same fear that I had once known and could well guess at Lucas’ unthinking remark.

The sun had just slipped behind the trees and evening cast its dark, smoky shadow.

Our fathers fought bravely. But do you know the biggest weapon unleashed by the enemy against them? It was not the Maxim gun. It was division among them. Why? Because a people united in faith...

He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should...

Love should never be a game.

Fenella Doorn watched the unfamiliar wreck of a ship ghosting into her bay. Crippled by cannon fire, she thought. What else could do such damage? The foremast was blown away, as well as half the...

Every time you go to see Hamlet you don’t expect it to have a happy ending…you’re still enthralled.(Interview BBC Radio 4 Today 17 October 2012.)

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower’s stem.

And unbidden, floating into consciousness came the truth of his utter wretchedness. Even the very earth seemed to cry out in pain. Hodburn Wood

Like billiard balls colliding our courses were altered.

Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.

French Revolution- all them fellas the figgered her out got their heads chopped off. Always that way, jus as natural as rain. You didn’t do it for fun no way. Doin’ it cause you have...

Mothers cry in anguishand fathers curse in anger,while others turn away in sadness,all for the children who are lost.

Children worked in the mills: “I will always believe that children are designed for green meadows and play, not for factories and cotton dust.

Why are you perpetuating a childhood you grew up despising? Pg 57