Quotes from Philippa Gregory

Have learned that the most precious thing is a place where you can be as you are, where someone can see you as your true self.

Either you have me or not at all. Either you love me or not at all. Either I am all yours or I am nobody's. I will have no half-measures with you.

There are women that men marry and there are women that men don't, Anne pronouned. And you are the sort of mistress a man doesn't bother to marry. Sons or no sons. Yes, Mary said. I expect your right. But there clearly is a third sort and that is the woman that men neither marry or take as their mistress. Woman that go home ...alone for Xmas. And thats seems to be you my dear sister. Good day.

It is not love that matters, Mistress Boy, it is what you choose to do with it. What'd you choose to do with yours?

I could not do it. I would not do it. I sat back on my heels with the book in my hand with the light of the fire flickering and dying down and realized that not even in mortal danger could I bring myself to burn a book.

You don't need to struggle, your baby is coming. Help him come to us, open your body and let him come into the world. You give birth, you don't force birth or besiege it. It's not a battle, it's an act of love. You give birth to your childd and you can do it gently.

The tears in my eyes are now running down my cheeks at the thought that I have been his wife and his bedfellow, his companion and his duchess, and even now, though he is near to death, still he does not love me. He has never loved me. He never will love me.

But young hearts mend easily, and hearts that own half of England have something better to do than to beat faster for love.

Everything that highly educated men can do to obscure a simple truth, to make a woman doubt her feelings, to make her own thoughts a muddle, they do to her. They use their learning as a hurdle to herd her one way and then the other and then finally trap her in contradictions of which she can make no sense.

Men die in battle; women die in childbirth.

I won't forgive this wrong done to me and my house, whoever it was that killed my boys, I shall put a curse on their house that they will have no first born son to inherit. Whoever took my son will lose his son. He will spend his life longing for an heir. He will bury his first born and long for him, for I cannot even bury mine.

Dear god, I am only twenty seven, my cause is defeated, my husband is dead. am I to be one of the poor widows who will spend the rest of their days at someone else`s fireside trying to be a good guest? shall I never be kissed again? shall I never feel joy? not ever again?

Have you ever wondered, Anne, in your untiring dance of seduction, whether you might not be dancing to Henry's tune instead of your own? I know how clever you are. How enticing. People whisper the word witch whenever you smile at him. But which of you is pale and hollow-eyed from too many scheming, sleepless nights? Which of you is growing more feverish day by day? Which of you is truly bewitched, Anne?

Insane, he says simply. Hopeless. The king is a saint and cannot rule, and his son his a devil and should not.

I will make my own future, not predict it. I don't need a charm to tell me what I hope will happen. I throw the gold charm which is like a wedding ring up in the air and catch it before it falls. This is my choice. I don't need magic to reveal my desire. The enchantment is already done: I am in love; I am sworn to a man of earth; I am not going to give this man up. All I have to do is consider how we can stay together.

I realize that I can laugh, that it is possible to be happy, that laughter and hope can come back to me.

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.

Knowing that you do not know is to ask humbly, instead of tell arrogantly. That is the beginning of wisdom.

I am a queen she observes. It is natural that men are going to gather round me, hoping for a smile.

Personally, I don't think that having a water goddess for an ancestress is a guarantee of freedom against seasickness, nor come to that, shipwreck.

He is fragile, like a prince of ice, of glass.

We are both people of faith, he said quietly. Our enemies should be the people who have no faith, neither in their God, nor in others, nor in themselves. The people who should face our crusade should be those who bring cruelty into the world for no reason but their own power. There is enough sin and wickedness to fight, without taking up arms against people who believe in a forgiving God and who try to lead a good life.

And what about Edward, is he still alive?' 'I don't know... I pray God he is.' 'But you don't expect him anymore?' 'No... If Edward is alive then I pray God he will find his way to me. And there will always be a candle in the window to light his way home, and my door will never be locked in case one day it is his hand on the latch.

He is a young man with a future of power and opportunity and we are young women destined to be either wives and mothers at the very best, or spinster parasites at the worst.