Quotes from Deanna Raybourn

When the light has fled but the stars have not yet shown themselves. That is the gloaming, the loveliest and saddest hour of the day.

there were days I wrote get out of bed in my planner just to be able to feel like I'd accomplished something.

Why? Death is part of life, child. It is not the end. It is not even the middle. It is merely a doorway. Alice is no further away from me than if she had stepped into the next room.

Are you going to say anything?" Brisbane crossed one leg lazily over the other flicking an imaginary piece of lint from his trousers. "I think he is doing quite well without me." "I did not mean for you to help him I meant for you to defend me," I said huffing slightly in my indignation.

I ran a finger over the seal, tracing the letters of the motto. ALIS VOLAT PROPRIIS. She flies with her own wings.

He gave me a look that was almost pitying, and when he smiled it was the smile of a vengeful god. "My dear Veronica, I am suprised you have not already learned -- everyone has a capacity for cruelty. Not everyone gets the chance to exercise it.

One may be elegant or enthusiastic, but seldom both. If

I loved you first and I will love you last

If one has a purpose, life is bearable enough, do you not think so?

It seemed a very great folly to attempt to force a declaration from him, but it seemed a greater folly to let him go. If there was a single chance at happiness with him, I was determined to seize it.

Have you not yet learned that it is easier to pull a star down from the heavens than to bend a woman to your will?

I hesitated for all the right reasons. And I accepted for all the wrong ones.

What was it that Napoleon said, my lady? 'Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.

whilst I reboarded my train of thought.

I had long since discovered upon my travels that men are largely the same no matter where one encounters them. And if one is prepared to let them discourse on their pet topics of conversation, one can generally get on with things quite handily without any interference.

Why, that is most intriguing. A lady scientist," he said in a tone of wonderment. "What will they think of next?

but just beneath the bell was a small scarlet plaque bearing the name of the club and the legend ALIS VOLAT PROPRIIS. "'She flies with her own wings,'" I translated.

To walk away from something is only half the picture. What are you walking towards?

There will always be men who rally to the cause of another man in his moment of disgrace simply because they fear their own so deeply.

Aunt Nell used to say it was not decent to have violet eyes, that they were a telltale sign of bad nature, like ginger hair or a hunchback.

Plants develop poison as a protection against predation. Should I keep one out simply because it has learnt better than its brothers how to defend itself? Roses have thorns and yet no one ever thinks to ban them from a garden for being prickly.

I would have appreciated the satisfaction of a carnal paroxysm—in my experience, they bring a sparkle to the eye as well as brightness to the complexion and a spring to the step—but using Stoker to achieve that end was a means I could not begin to contemplate.

Tis a hard thing for a child to know she isn't wanted. It gets into her blood and bones until she knows that she must always find her own way, for none will smooth her path. But that sort of thing makes a woman strong, you know.

There was nothing more promising than the first stage of a new expedition. Everything was possible in that moment; there was no past, no future, only that hollow in time when everything paused.