Quotes from Mary Balogh

Life is made up of opposing pairs -- life and death, love and hatred, happiness and misery, light and darkness, and on and on into infinity. Finding balance and contentment is like trying to walk a tightrope between all those opposites without falling off on one side or the other and believing that life must be all light or all darkness, when neither one is truth in itself. Imogene

But she knew she would not sleep until she had somehow sorted through her thoughts about the night before. She pulled a chair to the window, blew out the candle, and sat looking out onto the moonlit lawns and trees.

She felt relaxed, happy, and sadder than she had ever felt in her life before.

I am too tired to see you work longer today.

I do not understand dalliance, Lord Ponsonby." "But you are d-drawn to it, Mrs. Keeping.

Some things, she said, are best not known for sure, Lord Trentham.

Christina, he said softly, look at me. Feel the rhythm. Feel my rhythm.

Sit down, please. It makes me tired to see you stand there.

But miracles did not always come in a single flash of time. Sometimes they came with every step forward one took when every instinct urged two steps back. Sometimes they came with the simple courage to say no longer, no more.

No hay ningún estado que podamos alcanzar y mantener eternamente. Por desgracia

She wanted it to last forever. She wanted him in her. She wanted release. She could not endure much longer without release. But not yet. Not yet. She wanted the wanting him to go on forever. She did not want thought or sanity or the cold and cruel world to come back. She wanted this to go on forever.

Sólo cuando no esperamos nada ni albergamos ningún sueño podemos mantener el control de nuestra vida. Los sueños a menudo implican a los demás y es imposible tener la certeza de que los demás no nos defraudarán, ni nos harán daño.

Creo que todos soñamos. ¿Cómo, si no, conseguir a veces que la vida resulte soportable?

Elizabeth closed her eyes and wished herself back to that previous occasion when Robert had first kissed her and told her that he loved her. If only they could go back, wipe out the intervening years. If only she could change the way he was, make him become permanently what he had seemed to be then.

La vida nos es insoportable a todos a veces —dijo ella—. No creo que haya nadie lo bastante afortunado como para escapar de toda la oscuridad que ofrece.

Por desgracia, la línea divisoria entre la noticia y el chisme siempre ha sido muy delgada.

It is a rude awakening, is it not, to discover that people change, or that they have other facets to their character that we did not suspect?

He pulled loose the ribbons of her bonnet and tossed the garment onto the opposite seat. He held her head against his shoulder and rested his cheek on top of it. He had no idea if she needed to be gathered in or not. But he needed to gather. "Idiot," he said. "You precious idiot, Elizabeth.

What a dull and unadventurous life this is sometimes.

Whatever had he meant by it? And how dare he mean anything!

The branches of most of the trees were bare now. He had never minded bare trees. He could see the sky through them. He had often lain along a stout branch, gazing upward, dreaming of worlds beyond the one he inhabited.

He watched her go, wondering if life ever offered happiness in more than very small, very brief doses. T

Miss Abigail Westcott, he had concluded during the past week, when he had watched her far more than he had wanted to and far more than was good for him, did most of her living inside herself. Like an iceberg, she showed the merest tip of her totality to the world, even her family. Perhaps especially to them. He wondered if they realized it.

Sometimes other people's words become uncomfortable mirrors in which we gaze upon ourselves.