She dropped her head again on Marius’ knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever,...

If it makes you feel better, I pressed others to change as well. Guess I just didn’t fight hard enough for any of it.

He watched the newly arrived commuters as they stepped into the carriage, pushed their way down the tube, the odours from their damp clothes mingling, giving off varying degrees of mustiness: London grime, or smoke...

Snow crunched under the feet of three cloaked figures – a queen, her lady, and a gravedigger – as they hurried along a moonlit path in Windsor Castle’s lower ward. The gravedigger pushed a cart...

But you see, Crumb, it is hard to give up what you have worked at since you were a boy. There were some Italian visitors once, they were cheering us on, Brandon and myself, and...

To see the years touch ye gives me joy”, he whispered, “for it means that ye live.

‘Are our gods better than Olaf’s god?’ Alfdis laughed. ‘That’s a silly question. Gods are gods. Our gods have been with us since the beginning of the world. We sacrifice to them, and they aid...

They would never forget the war. The world wouldn’t let them, and neither would history.

Wouldn’t you like to be my lord Duke of Exeter? Come on, Dom. Say something.””You have lost your mind.””Say something less insulting.

Both slaves had been oiled until their flesh shined like polished ebony, outlining every detail of their muscles.

Now you can be a kikei, too.

Are you a traveling man he asked?

Confession is good for the soul even after the soul has been claimed” (p. 381).

I don’t like coming over here at night, the girl said. The bayou is scary in the dark, all manner of things running wild out there.

Keep the guests company, and mind your asses! Stay out of the hall before my chamber!

What a read! Not lacking in action and very imaginative.

Largely, now, it was not anger he felt, but rather a kind of bone-scraping, quiet, ever-present sorrow. To come to the place that was supposed to stay the same, to come and find it changed....

He spent the next hours watching her sleep, taking in every detail of her face, of her body. The way the soft glow of the bedside lamp cast shadows on her cheeks. The way her...

Yessir, some things is sin ’cause God says so. Some things is sin ’cause they hurt other people. And some things is just pure-dee stupid.

It was all her doing. She had cried wolf and the wolf had come.

Loyal,” he tells me. St. Louis is a loyal town.

redoubtable” in front of it. I wondered if anyone ever called her redoubtable to her face. I redoubted it.

She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d’Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness.

I stop to brace myself against the walls, which are painted with the fingerprints of family.

People think blood red, but blood don’t got no colour. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream for that son of a bitch to come, the lone baby of 1785....

Two hundred and fifty years of nameless, faceless, forgotten individuals. Yes, they were America’s founding fathers and mothers as much as the bewigged white men who laid the whips upon their backs. Why didn’t Lina...

You want a sermon? Jesus died and resurrected and then run off to Heaven to leave us sinners here. Amen.

The Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte had been banished to the island of Elba. However His Imperial Majesty had some doubts wheter a quiet island life would suit him – he was, after all, accustomed to governing...

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.