Quotes from Anne Perry

Hester, recently married herself, and knowing the depth and the sweep of love, ached for Callandra that she sacrificed so much. And yet loving her husband as she did, for all his faults and vulnerabilities, Hester, too, would rather have been alone than accept anyone else.

The sun was barely above the trees and any moment it would disappear. There was a golden haze in the air and it was appreciably colder than even a few minutes before. A cloud of starlings wheeled above a distant stand of poplars, still bare, although in the next garden a willow trailed weeping branches like streamers of pale chiffon. The breeze was so slight it did not even stir them.

Love that expects perfection—no past with mistakes, pain, learning—is only hunger. No one grows to maturity without acts to be ashamed of; in accepting that, we love not only the strengths but also the weaknesses, and real bonds grow between us.

worked night and day to prove his innocence." "Indeed, Mr. Pitt knows it most of all," Grisewood said with a wide smile. "The prosecution rests, my lord.

She knows what matters and what doesn't,' she answered, choosing her words carefully. 'She remembers what she receives, but never what she gives. She doesn't hold grudges, and if she thinks something is funny she will laugh, whether it is the done thing or not. She loves the opera, and gorgeous clothes. She is honest when it is fashionable not to be, but she is never unnecessarily unkind. And she will fight to the death for a cause she believes in.

You wanted a peaceful, comfortable Christmas, with all reminders of poverty, injustice, or other people's griefs well out of sight, so as not to disturb your pleasure. That isn't what Christmas is about, Wallace. Christmas is about offering hope to all people, not just those like ourselves. Christmas is about everyone: rich or poor, friend or stranger. The moment you exclude anyone, you exclude yourself.

A great help, thank you." Pitt calculated quickly. It must have been after ten, at this time of the year.

When there is so much tragedy and pain in the world that we cannot help, it seems incomprehensible that we should bring even more upon ourselves. Sometimes I despair of mankind.

One person's ideals sometimes endanger someone else's privileges.

Only the quick-fingered, the strong and the lucky reached adulthood. Monk could not afford to indulge in judgment

wevver's comin' ter." "What date in July?

Yes, I was surprised about her myself. I had always considered her to be proper enough, if somewhat light-headed. It shows how one can be deceived." "Because she was killed?" Caroline said with a lift of amazement in her voice. "Precisely.

There is no hatred on earth like that for someone who possesses a virtue you do not have, or want. It is the mirror that shows you what you are, and obliges you to see it.

After all, he was a mere policeman and in the house of those considerably superior to him socially.

When you trust no one and believe in nothing, you are vulnerable to anything, and yet in some ways also to nothing. He was still learning what it was to belong irrevocably, not to be able to walk away because the ties are too deep, too woven into who you are, who you want and need to be, where all that is comfortable and precious resides.

After that it would be a matter of other sources for general information, the nearest public house which the male servants might occasionally frequent, errand and delivery boys, street peddlers and crossing sweepers who might have an observant eye and, for a few pence, a ready tongue.

The more flawed a man was, the shoddier it was to take advantage of his inadequacies to destroy him.

I wonder how often in the past I may have missed the good in people because I pre-judged, based on the differences?

Of course there will be disappointments and the way will not always be as I expected it. But if it seemed easy, then that would be the time to worry that I am on the wrong path.

Mystery writers' conventions are usually good, and this one has been excellent and extremely well prepared and thought out in advance. A lot of people have given their time and their skill, and a good deal of wit, and Anchorage has made us extraordinarily welcome.

The great question, is there anything at all which is worth fighting such a war about, with the devastating loss it will bring? I believe yes, there are some freedoms which to sacrifice would be EVEN worse.

Disillusion in an ache that eats into the dreams of goodness, of love, of any value that matters - even to the very belief in life.

You start at the end, and then go back and write and go that way. Not everyone does, but I do. Some people just sit down at the page and start off. I start from what happened, including the why.

A good library can provide the furniture of our minds and the threads from which we weave our dreams.