Quotes from Sally Bedell Smith

Thatcher once said that if she were a visitor from Mars required to create a constitutional system, "I would set up ... a hereditary monarchy, wonderfully trained, in duty and in leadership which understands example, which is always there, which is above politics, for which the whole nation has an affection and which is a symbol of patriotism.

Like the princess, Philip didn't believe in public displays of affection, which made it easy to mask his feelings. But he revealed them privately in a touching letter to Queen Elizabeth in which he wondered if he deserved "all the good things which have happened to me," especially "to have fallen in love completely and unreservedly.

if you find something or somebody a bore, the fault lies in you.

Philip revealed his carefully cloaked emotions when he wrote to his mother-in-law, "Cherish Lilibet? I wonder if that word is enough to express what is in me." He declared that his new wife was "the only 'thing' in this world which is absolutely real to me, and my ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to withstand the shocks directed at us but will also have a positive existence for the good

After American titan and presidential father Joseph P. Kennedy suffered a stroke that impacted one side of his body, guests pretended not to notice the impact. Jackie Kennedy, however, held the impacted hand and kissed the affected side of his face, facing his disability and giving him the courage to do so.

Your Majesty, I'm afraid everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong," said Major Sir Michael Parker, an impresario for royal events with an expertise in pyrotechnics. "Oh good, what fun!" she replied with a smile.

Jack Kennedy brought an "intense concentration" and a "gently teasing humor" to the dinner table, along with what Katherine Graham called his habit of "vacuum cleaning your brain.

Time is not my dictator," said the Queen Mother. "I dictate to time.

Time is not my dictator," said the Queen Mother. "I dictate to time. I want to meet people.

But attention focused on their inane sexual banter, especially Charles's juvenile wish to be reincarnated as a tampon so he could "live inside your trousers.

Poet Laureate John Betjeman composed a "Wedding Ode of Joy" to celebrate the marriage. His verses ended by casting back to Charles's 1969 investiture in Wales when "you knelt a boy, you rose a man. And thus your lonelier life began." Now, he wrote, "The scene has changed, the outlook cleared. The loneliness has disappeared." He could not have been more mistaken.

There are long periods when life seems a small dull round, a petty business with no point, and then suddenly we are caught up in some great event which gives us a glimpse of the solid and durable foundations of our existence." The

Asked to explain how he became a war hero he (Kennedy) responded, "It was involuntary. They think my boat.

Her uncanny empathy grew out of her tenuous sense of herself. She could shed her own troubles, compensating for her own emptiness, by losing herself in others' traumas—in effect, she could "be" another person, if only momentarily—even as she delivered the sort of compassion she desperately wanted for herself.

The idea that you don't do anything on the off-chance you might be criticized, you'd end up living like a cabbage and it's pointless. You've got to stick up for something you believe in." While

their time was devoted to sightseeing (which she filmed on her movie camera), they also

I cannot let Christmas pass without speaking to you directly of these difficulties because they are of deep concern to all of us as individuals and as a nation. Different people have different views, deeply and sincerely felt, about our problems and how they should be solved. Let us remember, however, that what we have in common is more important than what divides us." The

In England the upper class always have had separate bedrooms," explained their cousin Lady Pamela Mountbatten (later Hicks). "You don't want to be bothered with snoring, or someone flinging a leg around. Then when you are feeling cozy you share your room sometimes. It is lovely to be able to choose.

There has been much speculation, not least because of historical parallels, about when precisely Elizabeth became Queen. It undoubtedly happened when she was atop the African fig tree, which draws a romantic line to the moment in 1558 when Elizabeth I, seated next to an oak tree at Hatfield House, heard that the death of her sister, Queen Mary, meant she was the monarch, also at age twenty-five.

When is the wedding?" asked the Queen. "The Fourth of July," I replied. Yet again I saw those twinkling eyes. "Oh," she said, "that's a little dangerous!" "I hope all is forgiven,

when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American.

later. In a letter written on his return home, he thanked his friend for his "support