Quotes from Mary Balogh

It was nothing short of amazing, in fact, how the human spirit could be rocked to its core by the most catastrophic events life could throw its way and yet steady itself and recover—and then thrive.

It was understandable. But very unfair.

It was a development that she had desired for a long time. But now surely was the wrong time for it to happen.

I loved you passionately. I always dreamed of your loving me, far back where dreams are kept.

She would not live with him day by day, aching for every kind word or chance touch.

It is a dreary world out there. It makes one thankful after all to be indoors with a fire burning in the hearth.

there was many a slip twixt cup and lip.

Better the dull pain of bitter memories, he was half inclined to think, than the raw pain of this new parting that was upon him. And there seemed to be nothing he could do to avert it.

I am sorry now. I missed an hour of your company. A dreadful thing to miss, he said. Your life will be forever impoverished, Allie.

Elizabeth clung now to the seat of the curricle as she looked back on that night over the achingly lonely years between. Hetherington just could not be the same man. They could not possibly have grown so far apart after having shared that .

The future is bright if we want it to be. And the present is lovely. We are together.

One should choose one's physician with as much care as one chooses one's tailor. He paused a moment. Perhaps even more carefully.

I am sorry all the same, she said. And that it rained this afternoon. I could have wished that today would be perfect.

Never the end, my love. Now that I have you at last. Only beginnings.

that he really had suffered

Henrietta was bitter. Nothing in her life had turned out well. Like everyone else, she had striven all her life to achieve happiness. Yet it seemed to her that she had never been happy.

And so Henry's resolve to leave, to disappear somewhere far away from this life that she had ruined so thoroughly, was hardened.

He spends his time quarreling with her when they are together, and giving off sparks of jealousy when she talks to someone else.

He always felt a pang of something—anger? bitterness? loneliness?—when he heard Christina laugh. She seemed able to do it with everyone except him.

And there was nothing more to say. They sat and gazed at each other from opposite corners of the carriage and could not even smile.

And he began to claim his reward in thorough and leisurely fashion.

You would end up unhappy and bound for life to your unhappiness.

And all the time he stood there . . . he was aware of Christina beside him, beautiful, elegant, gracious, smelling of lavender—and for this evening and a few more days his to look at, to admire, to yearn for.

Did disasters sometimes happen to turn one away from a wrong course into the right one, the one that would bring the most happiness and the greatest fulfillment?