Quotes from Sharon Kay Penman

That may be infidel wisdom, but it is wisdom all the same.

A man just realizing the fatal extent of his own folly was not likely to be all that rational.

Mayhap not, but a king ought to be far-sighted enough to realize that if reforms are inevitable, better he be the one to carry them out.

She was dying and he was not, and that was a barrier not even love could breach.

But such was her faith in Simon that it colored her faith in God; unable to conceive of defeat, she never doubted that the Lord, too, willed Simon to win, and falling asleep in Simon's arms, she did not dread the morrow, so secure was she in the strength of her yesterdays.

He was too astute a politician, too ambitious a Prince, to confuse friendship with statecraft.

Simon said nothing, thinking of all the good men who'd died because this inept, faithless fool had been born a King's son.

You must try to understand, my dearest one. It was not treason, was but a dream bred before its time, that the King should not be accountable only to God. No mortal man ought to be entrusted with power such as that, for any king's son may be born a fool.

Edward Plantagenet is no man to hold cheaply. Far better to take him at his own inflated estimation!

nothing in life turns out as we thought it would, nothing...

And if Harry spun webs to make a spider proud, Eleanor could entangle archangels in her snares.

Yes, but it can be no condescension for the son of a count to serve the son of a king.

A man worthy of Eleanor of Aquitaine ought not to be susceptible to fluttering lashes, flattery, and bedazzled adoration.

Eleanor's greatest grievance was not a simpering lass with flaxen hair and smooth skin. It was Aquitaine, always Aquitaine.

I feel that historical novelists owe it to our readers to try to be as historically accurate as we can with the known facts. Obviously, we have to fill in the blanks. And then in the final analysis, we're drawing upon our own imaginations. But I think that readers need to be able to trust an author.

For every wound, the ointment of time.

I should like to freeze in time all those I do love, keep them somehow safe from the ravages of the passing years..."Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!

Women did not have as many options as men, and I need to reflect that reality in my mysteries.

I inhale hope with every breath I take.

she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime.

I should like to freeze in time all those I do love...Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!

We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?

A scar signifies past pain, a wound that did not heal as it ought. But it testifies, too, to survival...(Here be Dragons)

Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.