Quotes from Philippa Gregory

We say that we are rulers of this country, but we do not make a rule of law. We say that we command these people, but we do not lead them to peace or prosperity. We,their own lords, quarrel among ourselves, and bring death to their door, as if our opinions and thoughts and dreams are worth far more than their safety and health and children.

I have the Sight, I should have seen it all, but some things are too dark to forsee. These are hard times, and England is a country of sorrows. No mother can be sure that she will not bury her sons. When a country is at war, cousin against cousin, brother against brother, no boy is safe.

A woman who loved him would have to learn obedience, and I was not yet ready to be an obedient wife.

People always make up stories about princesses. It comes to us with the crown. We have to carry it as lightly as we can.

Don't be afraid of the future, little Julia. Take your present life and live it.

I would like you to have a beautiful day every day.

You just decide. Just decide that you are not going to be a fearful woman and when you come to something that makes you apprehensive, you face it and walk towards it. Remember - anything you fear, you walk slowly and steadily towards it. And smile.

I have overturned the order. Nothing will ever be the same for any woman in this country again.

Mother, before God, I say, my voice shaking with tears, I swear that I have to believe that there is more for me in life than being wife to one man after another, and hoping not to die in childbirth!

The baby should always be saved in preference to the mother. That is the advice of the Holy Church, you know that. I was only reminding women of their duty. There is no need to make everything so personal, Margaret. You make everything into your own tragedy.

A parcel--taken from one place to another, handed from one owner to another, unwrapped and bundled up at will--is all that I am. A vessel, for the bearing of sons, for one nobleman or another: it hardly matters who.

Life is long, and if a woman survives, she can take her pleasures one way or another.

I would not care whether people thought I was special, if my life was truly special. It would not mater to me that people could see me as pious, if I could truly live as a woman scholar of piety. I want to be what I seem to be. I act as if I am specially holy, a special girl; but this is what I really want to be. I really do.

You are my heart. Even if you are a broken heart

Learn you to die!" means consider how your death is meaningful, as your life is meaningful.

This is what I feared would come; this is what I have dreaded. It is not very bright and honorable as you have always thought it; it is not like a ballad. It is a muddle and a mess, and a sinful waste, and good men have died and more will follow.

I will go to war should there ever be a cause I think worth dying for--and not before.

I had never seen a woman in such despair before. It was worse than death, it was a constant longing for death and a constant rejection of life. She lived like darkness in her own day.

You just decide,' she says simply. 'Just decide that you are not going to be a fearful woman and when you come to something that makes you apprehensive, you face it and walk towards it. Remember – anything you fear, you walk slowly and steadily towards it. And smile.

you are my joy. You are worth tens of thousands.

There was a magic: and the name of it was love.

A troubadour to a distant mistress.

There are many sorts of love," she counsels me. "And when you love a man who is less than you dreamed, you have to make allowances for the difference between a real man and a dream.

So let me see? What do I have? Surprise! Surprise!