Quotes from Sharon Kay Penman

I would look dreadful in black.

Richard forced him from his sickbed, broke his power, his pride. But you, John, you broke his heart. I truly wonder which be the greater sin.

In a contest of wills between John and his mother, he did not think John would prevail, indeed he hoped he would not. But he did not care to be a witness to their confrontation; he suspected Eleanor's methods would be neither maternal nor merciful.

Otherwise, I'd like nothing better than…conversing with you. You're such a deep, penetrating conversationalist, after all

back all he'd been

Fretting about time's passing will not slow it down one whit.

Do not fret, lad. Priests expect you to keep on sinning, do not care as long as you keep on confessing, too. In fact, I would think they prefer it that way, for if there were no sinners, why would we need them?

Louis shook his head. Those who dismiss women as the weaker sex, he said mildly, have never met the Countess of Leicester.

Now our poor Gib never had a sense of humor to lose...

The Lancastrian army had been on the march for fully fifteen hours, had managed to cover twenty-four miles in that dash for the Severn. But Edward had done the impossible; in just twelve hours, he'd ridden an astonishing thirty-five miles.

You hair looks verily like spun gold, he said, and then laughed. I sound like every smitten lover since the world was green. Why must the language of love be so threadbare? There ought to be a way to tell you how I feel without evoking so many echoes, so many ghosts.

A gain I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to men of skill but time and chance happen to them all.

The scene in the great hall was a raucous one, a cheerful mélange of knights, minstrels, servants, disreputable-looking women, and dogs, who were dicing, performing bawdy songs, responding to cries for wine, laughing shrilly, and barking.

An intimate enemy, death, capricious and cruel, ultimately invincible.

In the past few months, life had lost its sweetness and he'd lost his way. But no longer. Death was once again the enemy, his indifference and apathy drowned in a Cheshire pond.

I]f I truly thought we had a chance to succeed…But the risk is too great. I've never been so hungry that I was willing to lick honey off thorns.

Fear did make people cautious; rage such as this was dangerous, was all too apt to lead to disaster

In my life, I've been both the besieged and the besieged, and I know damned well which I prefer!

Troubles may ofttimes be so dire that they cannot get better. But they are never so dire that they still cannot get worse.

even if he'd had the resources to indulge himself, no Welshman could have respected a commander who went to war with feather mattresses and silver plate.

Llewelyn smiled. "We have a saying amongst my people: Eilfam modryb dda; a good aunt is a second mother.

Marriage was a Sacrament, yet these festivities more often resembled pagan rites than Christian nuptials.

for he of all men knew how dangerously stubborn Henry Fitz Empress could be. There were faint bloodstains upon the tiles in Canterbury Cathedral testifying to that.

He could not change his nature, could not help being cautious, deliberate, introspective, not traits to be scorned by any means, but traits that seemed dull, bland—even to him—when compared with Davydd's hell-for-leather dazzle.