Quotes from Deanna Raybourn

Life is too uncertain... You must seize happiness where you find it.

In my experience it is far better to tell a man what he wants to hear then do as you please, than attempt to reason with him.

I put my hands on my hips, not caring if I sounded like a Billingsgate fishwife. "Yes, it was a dangerous thing to do, but as it seems to have escaped your attention, I remind you I am above thirty years of age, of sound body and mind, and in control of my own fortune. That means," I said, moving closer still, poking his chest for emphasis, "I am mistress of myself and answer to no one.

You are curious and quick, you have a deft mind, and for some unaccountable reason, people tell you things -- useful things.

Because if we're on the road to hell, we're going to dance the whole damn way and give them something to talk about when we're gone.

I have known enough of women to understand they are as duplicitous and vicious as men. If they are capable of being our equals in malice, why not in our better qualities as well? There are no masculine virtues, Veronica. And none sacred to women either. We are all of us just people, and most badly flawed ones at that.

You are not among the good that has happened to me. You are the best of all that I have known. You are what I searched for when I left that house and wandered this earth, boy and man. You are the part of myself I never thought to find because I did not even dare to dream you existed. You are all that I want and more than I deserve, and I will go to my grave thanking a god in whom I do not believe for bringing me you.

Without an expectation of success, one is rarely successful.

She left me then, surrounded by my extravagantly simple finery and I sat for a long time, uncomfortable both with the person I had been and the person I was finally becoming. Caught between the two of them, I felt rather lonely, as one often does with a new acquaintance.

I will make arrangements for you and Portia to return to London the following day. I will be closing up the house. I am leaving England for a while." "For how long?" I asked him, determined to keep my composure. "Until I am quite recovered from you," he said evenly. "When will you return?" "Never.

After all, I might not intend to use him for a plaything, but I could still appreciate looking through the toy-shop window.

Men, I had often observed, were never happier than when they believed they were imparting wisdom.

Those are facts. Are they the truth? No, for they do not tell you of the heart, and that is where truth lives.

The truth is a hard mirror, and I am in no mood to look upon my reflection.

She didn't look at me and I didn't look at her. Some questions are so direct the only way to ask them is sideways.

When the wind is right and the cloud is gone, you can see down this road as far as Darjeeling," I told her. "But it is a long and difficult road, full of perils, and if a traveller on foot were to look at the length of it, his spirit would be overcome and he would sit down and refuse to go any further. You must not look to the end of the road, Portia. Look only to the step in front of you. That you can do. Just one step. And you will not make the journey alone.

Everyone has a capacity for cruelty. Not everyone gets the chance to exercise it.

I'd had my heart broken, you see. Fell in love with the wrong chap and he crushed me right down to the bedrock. Nothing left but humiliation.

Mrs. de Morgan- How can you stand to be near him now that you know he has taken a life? Veronica- Because, Mrs. de Morgan, I have taken two.

I reached up to press a kiss to his cheek. "Do not be too angry with Father. He did not mean it not really." "Angry? I feel rather sorry for him. We are kindred spirits," he observed with a wry twist of his mouth. "How so?" "We both suffer because you will not understand how utterly essential you are to our happiness.

Is there any feeling as delicious as the beginning of a new adventure? To be perched upon the precipice of a fresh endeavor, poised for flight, the winds of change ruffling the feathers, ah, that is what it means to be alive!

Only women are ever called persnickety," Mary Alice said. "Men get to be 'detail oriented.

I felt in this new adventure I was rousing to life again. I was a butterfly, newly emerged from the chrysalis, damp winged and trembling with expectation.

Of course, he was absolutely correct, it was no concern of mine. So naturally I thought about it--excessively.