Quotes from Mary Balogh

When we last out at ourselves for having lost control, we are reminded that we never can be in total control, that all life asks of us is to do our best to cope with what is handed to us.

Youthful dreams are precious things. They ought not to be dashed as foolish and unrealistic just because they are young dreams. Innocence ought not to be destroyed from any callous conviction that a realistic sort of cynicism is better.

But he was not Matthew. He was everything that Matthew was not. He was safety and comfort and warmth. He was home. He was everything in the world that was hope and sunshine. He took a step toward her and opened his arms to her, and she was in those arms without ever knowing how the distance between them had closed.

Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.

Edward describing Angeline's bonnet) Then it is overbright and those colors should never been seen togther upon the same person, not to mention the same garment . he said. And it actually suits you perfectly. It suits your character.

Except that love - that mysterious, vast, all-encompassing power - could not possibly be contained in a single word.

Would she be able to bear never seeing him again? Never in this life?

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.

How dare he give her no opportunity to ignore him?

Ah, but dreams cannot be captured with promises, he said. Like water, they elude our grasp. But water is the staff of life. I believe your dream will come true if only because you will not compromise on it and let it go too lightly.

Life is a precious possession...It is what one makes of it. - Charity Duncan

Tis what marriage is all about, madam, he said. Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and taste of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing.

Your sense of guilt will linger. It will always be part of you. but sharing it, allowing people to love you anyway, will do you the world of good. Secrets need an outlet if they are not to fester and become an unbearable burden.

Stanbrook once told me, he said, that suicide is the worst kind of selfishness, as it is often a plea to specific people who are left stranded in the land of the living, unable for all eternity to answer the plea

Now she realized she had never been kissed before. Not really. Not like this. Ah, never like this.

There were certain moments upon which the whole of the future course of one's life might turn. And almost inevitably they popped out at one without any warning at all, leaving one with no time to consider or engage in a reasoned debate with oneself. One had to make a split second decision, and much depended upon it. Perhaps everything.

Life was very sad if there were not - and unbearably so if one's experience with romantic love turned one into an incurable cynic.

We often do not say what is in our hearts," he said, "to those who are closest and most dear to us.

But I am glad you are not some sort of superhuman pillar of strength. I would not be able to prevail against it. I am too weak, too fragile. In each other's weaknesses, perhaps we can both find strength.

He asked me not to kill myself - asked, not told. His wife had done that, he told me, and it was in a sense the ultimate act of selfishness since it left behind untold and endless suffering for those who had witnessed it and been unable to do anything to prevent it. And so I remained alive.

I think it is more tha6 the sea is a reminder of how little control we have over our own lives no matter how carefully we try to plan and order them. Everything changes in ways we least expect, and everything is frighteningly vast. We are so small.

We must, as we grow older and wiser, be able to allow all the pain to seep out of our bones and our souls so that we can start again.

A funny thing, love. It was not always, or even mostly, a sexual thing.

It is a common failing of men. They see someone they consider beautiful and desirable and eligible, and they imagine that they love her. In fact, though, they love themselves reflected in her eyes.