Quotes from Philippa Gregory

She looks down at the ground to hide her smile of pleasure and to affect modesty, but when the dance brings them together and she takes his hand, her eyes come up to him and they gaze at each other with absolute longing.

They dressed her and she laced tightly so that her breasts were pressed into two tantalizing curves of creamy flesh at the neck of her gown. Her glossy black hair was exposed by her pushed-back hood, her long fingers were loaded with rings, she wore her favorite pearl choker with the "B" for Boleyn at her throat, and she paused before she left the room to look at herself in the mirror, and shot her reflection that knowing, seductive little half-smile.

That's how it is for women," I said, stung into honesty. "It's not what one would choose—I grant you that. But women are the very toys of fortune.

I have a longing for you, Lady Elizabeth Grey, that I have never felt for any woman before. Will you come to me? I ask it not as a king, and not even as a soldier who might die in battle, but as a simple man to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Come to me, I beg you, come to me. It could be my last wish. Will you come to me tonight?

I cannot be your mistress," I say simply. "I would rather die than dishonor my name. I cannot bring that shame on my family." I pause. I am anxious not to be too discouraging. "Whatever I might wish in my heart," I say very softly.

I want to teach him his prayers and his letters and his manners. I want him for my own. Not just because he is motherless, but because I am childless and I want someone to love.

man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.

Makes no difference," he said, with his intuitive knowledge of my thoughts. "No difference at all how your first marriage was. This is my marriage, and I want my wife in my bed." I laughed aloud and snuggled back into his arms. "It's where I want to be," I confessed. "Why would I ever want to be anywhere else?

feel that deep joy of a writer seeing her work in print for the first time. The absorbing private work has become public, it has stepped out into the world. It will be judged and I am full of confidence that it is good work.

She was a woman whose spirit had been hammered and forged until she could only ring true. Compared with the rest of us sho was silver, while we were pewter, a common of lead and tin.

Learning is an ornament to a good woman, not a distraction.

For a moment out eyes meet, but we exchange nothing except a grim determination to get this parting over, to get this exile under way, to keep this precious boy safe. I suppose that Jasper is the only man whom I have loved, perhaps he is the only man whom I will ever love. But there has never been time for words of love between us: we have spent most of our time saying good-bye.

I kneel on the planks for her blessing, and then sit beside her with my feet dangling over the edge and my own reflection looking up at me as if I were a water goddess living under the river, waiting to be released from an enchantment, and not a spinster princess that nobody wants.

But this world is changing. Perhaps by the time you are old enough to marry the world will hear a woman's voice. Perhaps she will not have to swear to obey in her wedding vows. Perhaps one day a woman will be allowed to both love and think.

keep her away from his brother. They say he had her locked in her room. But true love prevailed, and the young duke and the young widowed princess fell into each other's arms. At all events, this version of the story is all desperately romantic and wonderful. Fools of all ages enjoy it very much.

I would rather see you dead at my feet than dishonored.

I looked over to Anne. She was untying her mask and watching me with a long calculating look, the Boleyn look, the Howard look that says: what has happened here, and how may I turn it to my advantage? It was as if under her golden mask was another beautiful mask of skin, and only beneath that was the real woman.

The scene had been a nightmare, one of those insane nightmares where the most normal objects become infinitely menacing.

This is a woman who has not been tamed to be as others want; she has not been cut down to fit her circumstances.

The one thing that Jane's death should teach us is that life is precious and every day is a gift that we should treasure.

And still the bird sings as if to say that delight is easy, for those who desire it.

I am exhorted to be virtuous and fertile. The people see me indicated as the choice of God for Queen of England. Choirs sing as I enter the city, rose petals are showered down on me. I am myself, my own tableau: the Englishwoman from the House of Lancaster come to be the Queen of York. I am an object of peace and unity.

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. "It doesn't matter if you call it magic or determination. It doesn't matter if you make a spell or a plot. You have to make up your mind what you want, and have the courage to set your heart on it.

king himself is as sunny as the mornings. He declares that he is well again, much better