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

The greatest gift you can give an author is turning the page.

I have never learned to hate. Don’t let my first lesson come from you.

They do not call him the terror of husbands and lovers for no reason…

No valía la pena perder el tiempo en intentar cambiar el mundo; bastaba con evitar que el mundo lo cambiase a uno.

So why had he come? He’d said he’d had no choice, but for centuries men had chopped off their own limbs, faked insanity, gone into hiding or to prison rather than to war. Was there...

He could inspire ballads. He could inspire wars.

I am fond of history and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as...

A glance would not be enough to tell you this was the daughter of Katherine Raquel Demure. Even a lingering gaze would not suffice. No. Only careful study of the original and a comparative inspection...

Ann Boleyn…a Renaissance Audrey Hepburn in a little black dress.

Elsa’s mother no longer spoke to her of men and love, but of duty and fate and accepting one’s burden. As far as Elsa could tell, if love really was the inherited female domain, then...

Rebel Number Four” is waiting patiently by the door. I named him “Rebel Number Four,” for he is the fourth of his kind I have given the name “Rebel.” To many he may be just...

They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction.’Poor Grendel’s had an accident,’ I whisper. ‘So may you all.

Without entering here into a dissertation upon the historical romance, it may be said that in proper hands it has been and should continue to be one of the most valued and valuable expressions of...

Dead man shouldn’t have no fears. Makes his passing easier.

John had been a footman nearly all of his adult life. He knew decorum and appropriate behavior for his situation. But when he glanced from one twin to another, he nearly ruined his reputation and...

JAKE BAKER JOINING THE UNION ARMY IN NEW ORLEANS”I’d prefer to be back in Texas, taking aim at the Rebs…, but I just can’t do that,” said Jake. …”So, I’ll just do what I can...

I aim to make the fiction flexible so that it bends itself around the facts as we have them. Otherwise I don’t see the point. Nobody seems to understand that. Nobody seems to share my...

The sublime beauty was almost hidden withing the castle walls. She believed that the treasured things in life were often hard to find – a pearl in an oyster shell, a kind word in the...

There are some things you never say good-bye to

It takes courage to stand for what you believe in.

No life form on this planet undergoes such a slow and graceful death as the tobacco leaf.

Every day Fu-shee, the smaller children, and I fan out in the hills around Green Dragon to strip trees of their bark and leaves, dig up roots and search for wild grass. We’ll eat anything,...

Some girls are sweeter… Others have a tinge of bitterness… It is as if I can smell their souls. Their experiences and relationships are painted in warm, sour crimson.