Quotes from Anne Perry

She needed to believe in a power greater than her own, one with a higher justice, and a kinder mercy.

Anger at injustice has righted more wrongs than most other things, and it is one of the great creative forces in a civilized society.

And I am aware of her failings as well. She was impatient, she did not tolerate foolishness or indecision. Too often she did not listen to the views of others, and she was hasty in her judgment, but when she was wrong she apologized." His voice softened and he blinked rapidly. "She was a creature of high idealism

I've been wondering how much of a person is on the surface, how much we really know about anyone at all. We don't really know very much about each other, never mind those with whom we have only an acquaintanceship.

She had a certain pity for people who wavered, she entirely understood fear. . . .

there are none as virtuous as those who have never been asked.

take a great deal closer look at others, and then decide with whom you would, or could, change places, and what sacrifice of your nature you would be prepared to make in order to do so.

there was something extraordinarily sweet and comfortable about a friend who knows you and accepts you at your worst, your most bitter, or defeated, who sees your emotional ugliness naked and is not afraid to call it by name, and yet does not turn from you or allow you to cease to struggle, who wills your survival as precious.

But experience had taught her that such arguments failed. You cannot tell people to take into account what they do not wish to know. She

I daresay in a way he deserved it, Joseph agreed with reluctance. But which of us can afford what we deserve? I need better, don't you?

We can become so cruel and so selfish when we are afraid.

When you are in love, there is not much that hurts as deeply as rejection.

Science is just the latest theory we have, and as soon as another one comes along, a new discovery, a new way of interpreting them, then there's a new answer! It's not like mathematics that always adds up the same way, if you do it right. Science is a method of reaching a conclusion, not a conclusion itself.

Sometimes those who cannot create enjoy the power to destroy," Vespasia went on. "It is all they have.

Alas, hoist with my own petard.

If a man could only learn that you are not punished for the sin, but by it.

But he was too proud and too ambitious to be a coward. He had grasped what he wanted without flinching.

but putting her arms around him, telling him she loved him, were only palliative, on the surface, and she knew better than to pretend they reached the hurt.

That without honor and kindness there are no rituals in the world that make any difference," he replied. "The rest is detail. Do whatever seems beautiful or of comfort to you.

Fear was the most universal stripper of disguise and the self-protection of contrived attitudes

Oi didn't loike that bloke, Captain. Bastard, 'e were, but Oi s'pose rules is for them yer don't loike. Yer won't 'urt them as yer do. In't that what God's about, been fair to them as rubs your coat all the wrong way?

The room was one of her favorites, decorated entirely in dark green and white, with white doors and window embrasures, directing one's eye toward the light. The furniture was warm, dark rosewood, upholstered in cream brocade, and there was a bowl of white chrysanthemums on the table.

The more we think we are sophisticated sometimes the sillier we get—and certainly the more idle people there are with nothing to fill their minds except making moral rules for everyone else, the more hypocrisy there is as to who keeps them and who doesn't.

Never allow your dreams to be limited. You should aim for the stars. Live and die with your arms outstretched and your eyes seeking the next goal.