Quotes from Sharon Kay Penman

And what of those who didn't know him? What happens, too, when all who knew him are dead, when people know only what they've been told? What truth will we be talking about, then?

If that's how you'd rather remember it. But I did not mean that as a reproach. I do not, in truth, think less of you for having the common sense to abandon a ship once waves began to break over the bow. Nor, after sixteen years shut away from the sun, am I likely to find tears to spare for Henry Plantagenet.

What is a thing worth, if it comes with no risk?

For treason he knew to be the most contagious of afflictions and innocence no guarantee of immunity.

Shall I tell you how to mend a broken trust? Pluck the feathers from a goose, scatter them to the four winds. Then gather them all up, each and every one, and put them back on the goose. It is as easy as that.

Richard grinned, very pleased with himself for having found a way to honor his mother, thwart his father, and serve God, while having a grand adventure at the same time.

She wanted to order him clapped in irons, as he so deserved. But she was stopped by what she saw in the faces of the watching men: disapproval, instinctive and involuntary, but disapproval, nonetheless. They were not comfortable when power was wielded by a woman, not at a man's expense, a man who had just acquitted himself so spectacularly at Lincoln, winning their reluctant respect in a way she knew she never could.

as was his way, once he acknowledged the problem, he set about finding a means to resolve it

The last time Ranulf had run into Sulien, the older man had called him a misbegotten English Judas and spat onto the ground at his feet. Yet now that same man was approaching the bed with a jovial smile, so apparently pleased to see the Judas again that Ranulf half-expected him to announce that a fatted calf had been killed in his honor.

Ranulf had spent much of his life watching those he loved wrestle with the seductive, lethal lure of kingship. It had proved the ruination of his cousin Stephen, a good man who had not made a good king. For his sister Maude, it had been an unrequited love affair, a passion she could neither capture nor renounce. For Hywel, it had been an illusion, a golden glow ever shimmering along the horizon. He believed that his nephew had come the closest to mastery of it, but at what cost?

But in all honesty, I do not find it so peculiar a notion, that a Welshman should rule Wales.

If, like the Romans, he must make a desert and call it peace, so be it.

for each age interprets the past in the light of its own biases.

She found it ironic that, even after marrying twice and raising four sons to manhood, the workings of the male brain remained such a mystery to her.

Poor Wales, so far from Heaven, so close to England!

The day that he accused a reigning King of murder was the day he signed his own death warrant, and he knew it.

He supposed he'd always known he would not make old bones. Scriptures spoke plainly enough on that. For all they that take up the sword shall perish by the sword.

Just because something has always been done a certain way does not make it right.

Apparently too much candour can become tedious, or so Lady Emma tells me.

As wretched as she was, she wanted Harry to be miserable, too. And yet, she was aware of an underlying sense of sadness. Theirs may have been the first war in which there were no winners, only losers.

It felt at times as if the very center of his world had become hollow, and try as he might to fill it with faith, the emptiness lingered. He was not sure why his faith was not enough, although he suspected that it was because it had come to him so late in life. If he were God, he'd look askance, too, at deathbed conversions. No matter what the priests might tell him, piety must lose some of its lustre when it was not altogether voluntary.

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly

Here I was, rushing off to save my little brother from pirates, only to find that he fancies being a pirate himself!

A pity you were not born a woman in this life, Little King of Lesser Land, for you seek only to please and to be admired by all.