Quotes from Karen Essex

I suppose that Lucy and I were worthy of the male gaze, what with her pale blond beauty shown off nicely in a peach summer frock, in contrast to my black hair set against light skin. Tonight I wore my favorite dress of pale green linen, which everyone said complemented my eyes, and a cotton bolero jacket perfect for a summer evening.

Together, they were greater than either them could possibly be apart. Together, she prayed, they were invincible.

The rich rarely give a black dog for a white monkey, my friend. It's the way of the world.

Those on the decline always criticize those on the rise.

Can you not see that we still might win? We lost a battle, not a war.

Once you've spent a winter buried in the Alpine snow foraging for food, it's hard to complain over heat.

Lovers of words have no place where honest work must be done.

the world we learned as children to fear---the milieu of goblins, ghosts, spirits, and magic - when it is the tangible world that is rife with unimaginable horrors. The truth is, we must fear monsters less and be warier of our own kind. -from Dracula In Love

The point of my books is to give voice to otherwise voiceless females from history and myth, to unlock what has been secreted away in women's hearts and minds for millennia. Historically, women have either been reduced to nothing but their sexuality or stripped of it entirely: the Madonna or the whore.

Everyone has a secret life. Perhaps yours is merely a gossamer web of thoughts and fantasies woven in the hidden furrows of your mind. Or furtive deeds performed on the sly or betrayals large and small that, if revealed, would change how you are perceived. -Dracula in Love by Karen Essex

I'm afraid that the gift of visiting the past is all that we have. We can revisit it, but only as it happened.

I am more human than rational.

You cannot hide from the truth, Mina. Anytime you try to argue with the truth you lose. Anytime you try to evade it or run away from it, it will find you down the road.

No rational person would intentionally commit an act of evil, for everyone knows that it would bring the wrath of the community upon him. (Socrates)

There are no accidents in this world, that no living being is seduced into an entanglement that he did not invite with his innermost desires. Would you agree with my estimation?

it is a quote from Mihri Hatun, a lady poet who wrote many centuries ago. 'A talented women is better than a thousand untalented men, and a women of understanding is better than a thousand stupid men.

She was keen on the idea that a strong mind, enforced with a strong will, could overcome any difficulty.

As a famous historian once said, in all its history, Rome deigned to fear two people; one was Hannibal, the other was a woman.

I remembered a truism that I had always known: no woman need let a man know the contents of her mind.

Guinevere loved Arthur until she met Lancelot. Do you not agree that it is possible to love one person but encounter another whose very soul speaks to you?

I knew that his confession would be a tremendous relief to him but a burden to me. Such information, once shared, can never be retracted.

Time. What was time? Time is a river that flows both forward and backward. How could that be true?

One hundred copies? Of these poems you do not even like?" asked the Roman. "They're nasty bits about famous people; everyone will want them.

I raised the hood of my cape and opened my umbrella. Headmistress had given it to me for my twenty-first birthday, knowing how fond I was of the purple foxglove that bloomed in the park. When open, the underside revealed in each of the panels a spray of painted stems, lush with lavender bells. "No matter how bad the weather, you will always be able to look up and see something that will cheer you," she had said, knowing that my quiet moods often concealed an orphan's melancholy.