Quotes from Anya Seton

Because he loved and lusted and floundered, while she did not, she would be forever free.

The house of fame, he thought, is built on melting ice, not steel...

Truly a wife is God's gift.

Had she not earned freedom from turmoil? From fear and pain?

faded daily. Sometimes she suffered much pain from the canker

she apprehended the rare purity of accomplishment which brought no personal gain.

For them both a thousand lamps were lit.

Nobody can live a continuous lie and find serenity.

She had beauty still, the thinness of her flesh but exposed the grace of her bones and sinews, but the great brooding eyes were circled by umber shadows and the thick black lashes seemed too heavy for the weary lids.

There was indeed fear in hoping

Fear, the devil's holy water

follow after love, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. What did that mean? Love. Aye, yet one must find it before one could follow it. As for spiritual gifts, they would undoubtedly be agreeable possessions though of limited use if they led only to prophesying.

Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Why should an all-loving father lead his child into temptation? Why must he be implored not to? At that moment in Ursula's drafty chamber, Celia renounced God. She would cease to worry about religion. She would conform to any outward acts which seemed expedient at the time, and she would guide her own life as she saw fit. Her own will and desires should be her sole criteria. All else was inconsistency or downright lies. And nothing was worth suffering for.

He required that she learn by heart certain passages from 'Self-Reliance.' 'Let us bow and apologize never more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me... A true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the center of things... Let a man then know his own worth and keep things under his feet.

And the night shall be filled with music,         And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,         And as silently steal away.

La verilitá, he thought, hardness of stone, heat of fires well banked. This man should never be a monk, nonetheless… Julian paused and chided himself. "Tuttavia e realmente dedicato." Dedication, a rare and wondrous quality, one he himself had lost during the stultifying years of Court life.

Timing's mighty important. In cooking, in life, in love. If the timing goes wrong, you've got to start over. Do it right.

Her lips were drawn to his like a moth to a flame.

It is seldom in life that one knows that a coming event is to be of crucial importance.