Quotes from Mary Balogh

I am a bit of a head-in-the-sand person as concerns things happening beyond the walls of my study. And I don't feel particularly guilty about that. I figure that my primary job is producing the very best stories I am capable of writing, and that is what I concentrate upon doing. That is within my control.

I fancy the romantic image of myself being soothed and inspired by music and the sweet aroma and flickering lights of candles.

I think I wrote 'The Trysting Place' in about three weeks. But it was inexperience that made me have to do that. I didn't feel good about the book all the time I was writing it. It felt a bit like wading through molasses.

I have written more than 100 novels and novellas since 1983 - I was first published in 1985. There was an overlap of three years with my teaching career, but finally I felt good enough about my writing career to quit teaching and write full time.

This time her heart would not break, even though it would hurt and hurt for a long time to come. Perhaps for the rest of her life. But it would not break. She had the strength to go on alone.

Always guarding one's real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquility within a thousand masks. Life itself had become a secret affair.

I have people introducing themselves to me: 'I am your publicist; what can I do for you?' But I have never learned how to use a publicist.

I do what I love and what I always dreamed of doing for a living. I write love stories, and I have always had a publisher willing to publish them. I have a sizable and loyal audience. I have made best-seller lists and won awards. What more could anyone ask for?

It was strange how the heart clung to hope even when there was no reasonable basis for it, Morgan found. And how life went on.

Even friends need private spaces, if only within the depths of their own souls, where no one else is allowed to intrude.

The bad part is life continues. The good part is that the pain goes away.

There is something infinitely better than happily-ever-after. There is happiness. Happiness is a living, dynamic thing, Eve, and has to be worked on every moment for the rest of our lives. It is a far more exciting prospect than that silly static idea of a happily-ever-after. Would you not agree? - Aidan Bedwyn

Always guarding one's real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquility within a thousand masks. Life itself had become a secret affair.

There is no happily-ever-after to run to. We have to work for happiness.

My happiness has to come from within myself or it is too fragile a thing to be of any use to me and too much of a burden to benefit any of my loved ones.

Love, I have discovered, does not judge. It just is.

Love did not have to make sense. It did not have to be worthy. It did not have to be earned. It did not have to woo. It just simply was.

Did she ever feel nostalgia for any of her girlhood dreams? But life was made up of a succession of dreams, some few to be realized, most to be set aside as time went on, one or two to persist for a lifetime. It was knowing when to abandon a dream, perhaps, that mattered and distinguished the successful people in life from the sad, embittered persons who never moved on from the first of life's great disappointments. Or from the airy dreamers who never really lived life at all.

This time her heart would not break, even though it would hurt and hurt for a long time to come. Perhaps for the rest of her life. But it would not break. She had the strength to go on alone.

The people we love are usually stronger than we give them credit for. It is the nature of love, perhaps, to want to shoulder all the pain rather than see the loved one suffer. But sometimes pain is better than emptiness. I have been so empty Kit. All my life. So full of emptiness. That is strange paradox is nit not - full of emptiness?

Sometimes it just seems that love is not enough, does it?

I do believe in fate, Anne-not the blind fate that gives one no freedom of choice, but a fate that sets down a pattern for each of our lives and gives us choices, numerous choices, by which to find that pattern and be happy.

Tears never were worth the effort of crying them.

I am free, you see, she said, to love or to withhold love. Love and dependence need no longer be the same thing to me. I am free to love. that is why I love you and it is the way I love you. If you have come here, Kit, because you think you owe me something, because you believe I might crumble without your protection, then go away again with my blessing and find happiness with someone else. I love you, he said again.