Quotes from Barbara Michaels

She loved the smell of books, the feel of books, the look of them on the shelf.

Probe deeply enough, under the slickest façade of confidence, and you tapped a vein of self-doubt or a hidden fear. Irrational fears and baseless doubts, many of them, but that was precisely why constant reassurance was necessary to the human animal.

I [glanced] at his soldiers with a curling lip. I had learned this gesture from watching Stefano. Apparently it was just as annoying on my face....

Any writer who waits for inspiration to strike will never finish a book. Inspiration is all very well but it will never replace sheer dogged determination.

Bruce ate a mouthful of eggs and meditated. 'I wonder how many of the great heroes of history would turn out to be a slow runner, if you ever investigated the circumstances.

The difference between a scientist and a fanatic is that the scientist discards his theory if the evidence doesn't confirm it. The fanatic twists the evidence to fit the theory.

As for Stefano... I had not expected we would see him that evening, since he had favored us with his presence for tea, but there he was, with that black stick balanced in his fingers, looking me over with a cool stare. Well schooled as his face was, I thought I detected an even more fiery emotion than usual in his blazing blue eyes, and I made him a mocking little bow.

Aren't you going to invite me in? No. You aren't very polite. That is a virtue I am seldom accused of possessing. Don't sulk, Cousin, it spoils the shape of that charming mouth.

If I was not in danger, why are you so pale? I inquired. Exhaustion, Stefano replied coldly. The exertion of moving the stone was strenuous, for a cripple. I can't imagine how you did it, I murmured, letting my eyes linger on the breadth of shoulder, displayed by his wetly clinging shirt. Unperturbed by my regard, Stefano smiled. Because my leg is injured does not mean all my muscles are atrophied.

Denied outlets for their creative talents in literature and the fine arts, women poured their hidden frustration and suppressed need for expression into the spheres delegated to them by the dominant male society. Needlework has been, in most cultures, a traditional female occupation. Spinning and weaving, sewing and embroidery…" Rachel

Silence might not be...entirely silent.

Well, Pat, you aren't going to believe this…

hours, she took forever over her morning

The dark, finely arched brows that contrasted so strikingly with his pale blond hair were raised high, in the same expression with which he confronted a hostile witness.

as she smiled and chatted and explained she felt like someone entertaining unexpected visitors with a dead body under the sofa.

Kate materialized in a cloud of steam from the kitchen, like a genie in a chef's hat.

Meg swore and hopped, nursing a bruised toe.

Dead men don't bleed. A thriller title if ever there was one.

Out in the garden purple and golden crocuses and the small blue flowers called "glory-of-the-snow" covered a certain spot like living patchwork.

When one's time approached, how much better to go out in a blaze of glorious lunacy, on a gnu, than to dribble one's life away in a rocking chair. Alexander

Ishtar could move with the silence of a cloud, and her leaps were so effortless they gave the impression of levitation. When she was feeling surly, she clumped. Ellen never understood how one dainty eight-pound cat could walk like an elephant, but Ishtar could, and often did.

Meg tried to squeeze past his long legs, but there wasn't room; she had to lower the toilet seat and lie across it in order to reach him, and part of her mind roared with slightly hysterical laughter at the absurdity of the position.