Quotes from Mary Balogh

Fear is a powerful beast, if it is allowed the mastery.

Miss Blanche Heyward, opera dancer, would have made a superlative drill sergeant if she had just been a man.

But all through life, it seems, we have to learn and relearn the lesson of loving people unconditionally, no matter what.

But really there was no hurry. It is time to love, he had said downstairs. And time was not always just one second long or even one minute or one hour. Those were artificial divisions, imposed by humankind. Time was infinite. And it was time to love... ...Even infinity had an end. They had loved. And somehow having loved was quite as beautiful as loving. For of course there was no real end to it. Infinity might have an end, but love did not.

Pain is not insignificant. Neither is bewilderment or fear. Or conditions like poverty or homelessness. But somewhere—somewhere—there is peace. It is not even far off. It is somewhere deep inside us, in fact, ever present, just waiting for us to look inward to find it." She

She is not conventionally beautiful or accomplished or elegant," Magnus continued, "but she is attractive. She does not even know how much, but every man she meets feels it and is drawn to her. The thing is, though, that most ladies feel drawn to her too. So it is not flirtation, you see. It is simply the extraordinary attractiveness of her character." -Slightly Dangerous (Bedwyn Saga #6)

If only the devil were feminine - perhaps he (she) was; no one had ever seemed to think of that - he would readily believe that her pseudonym was Daisy Morrison.

This was it. This was what she had longed for throughout the lonely years of her girlhood. Suddenly she felt lonelier than she had ever felt. And so excited she could barely breathe, Tresham stepped up beside her, drew her arm through his again, set his free hand lightly over hers, and said not a word. She had never loved him more.

Was something worth having, though, if it didn't present a challenge?

Unfortunately, Sir Gerald, people rarely get what they deserve in this life. Perhaps that is why we have had to invent a heaven. - Miss Blythe, A Precious Jewel

But I was a dreamer, you see, not a weakling.

I believe," he said gently, "we all have a perfect right to make ourselves unhappy if that is what we freely choose. But I am not sure we have the right to allow our own unhappiness to cause someone else's. The trouble with life sometimes is that we are all in it together.

Aprendi a ficar quieta e a parar de fazer coisas, de ouvir e até de pensar. Aprendi a ser. Aprendi que quase qualquer lugar pode ser um desses lugares especiais, caso eu o permita. Talvez tenha aprendido a encontrar esse lugar dentro de mim.

Emotion,' she told him, 'is not a reliable guide for our words and actions.' 'There you are wrong,' he said. 'Deep, true emotion is our surest guide. We make our greatest mistake when we allow our heads to rules ours hearts.' 'Emotion is our human weakness.,' she said, 'reason our strength.' 'And love,' he said, 'is our destiny.

There was at least as much to learn as there was to be taught.

I like your voice. That sounds ridiculously lame, I know. But when you cannot see, Miss Fry, sound and the other senses become far more acute. Normally one likes the look of someone to whom one feels attracted. I like the sound of your voice.

And a strong man, she said. Strong enough to be vulnerable, to take risks, to be honest even when honesty might expose him to ridicule or rejection. And someone who would put himself at the center of my world even before knowing that I would be willing to do the same for him. A man foolish and brave enough to tell me that he loves me even when I have hidden all signs that I love him in return.

Yet now he felt that perhaps he had missed one of the few chances life offered to step off the wheel of routine and familiarity and duty to discover if there was joy somewhere beyond its turning.

It is impossible," he said, "to put a label upon remembered feelings. They are colored too much by all our subsequent experiences.

Ladies did not allow fear to master them. Ladies did not abjure society merely because they were embarrassed and unhappy, merely because they felt unattractive and unwanted. Ladies did not give in to self-pity.

The idea that love conquers all may seem to be a foolishly idealistic one, but I believe in it nonetheless. How can I believe otherwise? If love cannot conquer all, what can? Hatred? Violence? Despair?

It is impossible to recapture innocence once it has been exposed for the illusion it is, she said. Illusion? He frowned. Why should innocence be more unreal, more untrue, than cynicism? I am not cynical, she said. But no, I could not go back.

Love does not deck the beloved in chains. It just is.

He loved me, she said, her voice leaden. It is so easy to take love for granted when one has always had it. I knew he loved me as I loved him, but I did not realize perhaps how much until all love was removed.