Quotes from Philippa Gregory

A steady love, a faithful love, a wife's love is the best.

Funny sky,' he said, squinting up at the thick-bellied white clouds and the sun shining so hot on them but not breaking through. 'It feels as if there should be a storm,' I said 'but it was like this at haymaking and the weather never properly broke then.' 'If I was at sea I should run for a port,' Ralph said. He was looking towards the horizon where there was a yellow tinge to the sky over the top of the downs.

I did not need to keep the letter to remember the tone. Anna triumphant. And she was right. 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.

I think that all of them must have lost their minds and have forgotten everything we were to each other. I said that they were no sisters to me, that I would forget them. But they have gone further than this: they have become my enemies.

He is smiling proudly, his face flushed, thinking that she is enjoying the sight of her son, her adored only son, in his wedding bed, a beautiful bride, a true princess, beside him. Only I understand that the sight of me, with his shoulder under my cheek, smiling in his bed, is eating her up with jealousy as if a wolf had hold of her belly.

You can always tell a pretty girl by the way she walks. A pretty girl walks like she owns the world.

There was I, fool that I am, thinking that you were being loving to me," he says shortly. "I thought you were touching me tenderly. I thought that our marriage vows had moved your heart. I thought that you were resting your head on my shoulder for affection. Fool that I am." I

He likes to think well of himself," I explained, watching the turn of Anne's head and hearing her ripple of low laughter. "He could not bring himself to turn off a woman just because she's become old. He has to find a way to see that it is God's will that he leaves her. He has to find a greater authority than his own desires.

It is as I said. Your house's emblem should not be the white rose but the old sign of eternity." "Eternity?" I repeat, hopeful that he is going to say something reassuring at this most dark time in our days. "Yes, the snake which eats itself. The sons of York will destroy each other, one brother destroying another, uncles devouring nephews, fathers beheading sons. They are a house which has to have blood, and they will shed their own if they have no other enemy.

It is easier to take a country into war than to bring it to live at peace, and a country at war is a bitter place to live, a risky place to have daughters, and a dangerous place to hope for a son.

We would never meet. I would never have to see them. They were a life I had left behind. I could cut myself in two and say: "That was the old life, the old life with her; it is gone now, all gone.

I think I've had my best days and I never expect to be happy again. But no, you're wrong. I want to live. I would rather live than die and I would rather be queen than dead. But I'm not frightened of you or your knife. I've promised myself that I will never care for anything that you say or do. And if I were afraid, I would rather die than let you see it." He

any mean, ambitious man,...counts his losses more than his gains.

I don't want to help, I want to hinder. I adore your hair, I like to see it loose.

He did not care, he was besotted with his pregnant queen, he dropped like a boy to kneel beside her, to put his hands on her great round belly and look up into her face.

in the mirror. Her breasts were inches higher than their usual position, it

This is the greatest

Richard told me I was the most beautiful girl that had ever been born, that one glance from me set him on fire with desire, that my skin was perfect, that my hair was his delight, that he never slept so well as with his face buried in my blond plait. I don't expect to hear such words of love ever again. I don't expect to feel beautiful ever again. They buried my joy and my girl's vanity with my lover, and I don't expect to feel either ever again. The

Any triumph she has is halved if I am not there to see it. And anything that goes wrong for me, any slight or humiliation, she is quick to perceive and she would even be quick to revenge—oh!—but inside her heart is singing to know that I have taken a blow.

This is the man they call a great king, the greatest king that we have ever had in England. Does it not teach us that we should have no king? That a people should be free? That a tyrant is still a tyrant even when he has a handsome face under a crown?

Her great bed had been moved in, and the walls hung with thick tapestries to exclude any noise or sunshine or fresh air. They had put rushes down on the floor with rosemary for scent, and lavender for relief. They had moved all the other furniture out of the room except for one chair and table for the midwife. Anne was expected to stay in bed for one whole month. They had lit a fire although it was midsummer and the room was stifling.

She did not realize, when her father claimed the throne and her brother won it, that a price must always be paid for power, and it will be paid by her as well as the rest of us. She doesn't realize yet that though men go to war it is women who suffer—perhaps more than anyone.

But to tell you the truth, it is the same for me. I am as envious of her as she is of me. But I have seen her rise and rise.

They are girls to whom things happen, and they take it hard. But I bear myself as more than a silly girl. I am the daughter of a water goddess. I am a woman with water in her veins and power in her breeding. I am a woman who makes things happen, and I am not defeated yet. I am not defeated by a boy with a newly won crown, and no man will ever walk away from me certain that he won't walk back.