Quotes from Philippa Gregory

I cannot know what the future will bring us," he says in a rapid undertone. "I cannot know where you will be given in marriage, nor what life might hold for me. But I can't let you go without telling you—without telling you at least once—that I love you.

I wil not heat treason from my own daughter What will you do behead me for treason? We are not an amry at war We are an army at war! This is your brother's rightful throne that we are talking about

We the daughters of Melusina,' she corrects me. 'Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age I didn't know whether she could summon up a storm or whatever it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it.

But I want to be loved. I have always been loved. I want my husband to love me with a passion, like in a troubadour tale, like a knight.

Ah, my dear, you are a good wife. You are my beauty. You are my only love.

But the magic moment when he walks alone has not yet happened, and I was praying he would do it before I have to leave. Now he will take his first step without me. And every step thereafter, I know. Every step of his life, and me not there to see him walk.

Another husband, another new house, another new country, but I never belong anywhere and I never own anything in my own right.

We will have to cut our coats to suit our cloth, and wait and see.

I don't think your God has ever advised you otherwise. You hear only what you want. He only ever commands your preferences.

I want to take you for pleasure, and hold you in my arms for desire. I want you to know that it is your kiss that I want, not another heir to the throne. You can know that I love you, quite for yourself, when I come to your bed

My advice to you, as you go to your husband, is never to trust him and never love him more than he loves you.

How can I bless you when you are cursed in your choice?

This is a generation of men accustomed to warfare, inured to danger and familiar with cruelty.

Her sadness had given her a serenity which had not been there before. It was as if she had learned a hard lesson: that chances in life would not fall into her lap like ripe cherries.

Anne's smile was as sweet as poison. 'What matter? So long as it is a Boleyn girl?' 'I didn't want you to come back to court to be my rival,' I said sulkily. 'I was born to be your rival,' she said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters aren't we?

He must desire the scent of the smoke of their sacrifice.

it is easier to unleash evil than call it back again. Any fool can blow up a wind, but who can know where it will blow or when it will stop?

Nothing would be the same for any woman in this country again. From this time onward no wife, however obedient, however loving, would be safe. For everyone would know that if a wife such as Queen Katherine of England could be put aside for no reason, then any wife could be put aside.

Before God, I love you and cherish you more than anything in the world. Of course I want to marry you. I love you heart and soul.

If you mean Charles Stuart,' Frances's voice rang out clearly in the hall, 'then calling him he of whom you were speaking is hardly a brilliant disguise. And if that is your idea of deep concealment then I don't anticipate great success, on the day of which you have spoken, or any other day, actually.

With this contradictory parentage of mine: solid English earth and French water goddess, one could expect anything from me. An enchantress or an ordinary girl. There are some who will say I am both.

I also felt a storm in the air. It prickled on the horizon. I felt it on my skin. The skies were clear, I could not wish for clearer. But I could feel the clouds massing against me, somewhere over the horizon.

We are not ordered by God to judge each other. We are not even ordered by him to consider another person's sin. We are ordered by God to let Him consider it, to let Him be judge.

Like almost all girls I don't know the date of my birth: my parents did not trouble to record the day and the time. I only know the year and the season, and I only know the season because my mother had a great desire for asparagus when she was carrying me and swears that she ate it too green and her bellyache brought on my birth.