Quotes from Jacqueline Winspear

Fear can be used in all sorts of ways to control people, and that's what he's done." They took a few

And talking of powers of deduction, I've just taken on an interesting new case.

Though there was the occasional supper engagement, so often her evenings were spent alone, her staple diet being the large pan of soup she made at the beginning of the week. And later, as she donned her flannel pajamas and pulled a pillow

We are all apprentices, Maisie. Even when we think we've graduated to another rung on the ladder of experience, there is always much to learn. Every soul who comes to me for counsel gives me another lesson in return, and I am humbled and made new by each fresh opportunity to serve.

You've got to just accept what has happened and get on with it… If you go back over every single decision that led to that moment… You'll never get better. You'll always be in that moment.

The center is where balance resides, and if you're not in balance, you cannot expect to continue moving forward without a fall.

Maisie]:...going out for luncheon with a gentleman is definitely not the same as going out to dine in the evening. [Billy]: You get more grub at dinner, for a start -

That's one more thing that I detest about war. It's not over when it ends.

And we've both learned the value of allowing only the very best pictures into our minds—so instead of imagining the terrible alternatives, make sure you see your son walking into the house and calling your name. See him coming home. Always see him coming home. Every time you think of something untoward, banish it straightaway—restrict your mind to the most wonderful thoughts of your boys.

Children should always be believed until proven otherwise.

No jumping to conclusions. Leave the path open for the truth to make itself known; do not hamper the way with speculation. Questions, Billy, are at the heart of our success—the more questions you ask, the better equipped we will be to help the girl.

And the ending was as she expected it to be . . . and they all lived happily ever after. She wondered about happily ever after. Did it exist only in fairy tales, in stories for children? Or was there hope, really?

Maurice Blanche had instructed her time and time again that the solution to a problem or question was rarely to be found in sitting alone and that movement of the body also moved the mind. It was a crucial part of the pilgrimage, the journey toward truth.

Use your training, Maisie, your heart, your intuition, and your love for your father to forge a new, even stronger, bond.

that's why I came back to art, after the war—it's a license to be a bit strange, after all; I sometimes think people expect it, so the fact that I am different doesn't matter.

Yet, despite the pressures of being a sole proprietor, Maisie knew that the curtain of darkness from her past was lifting. Not that she forgot, not that she didn't still have nightmares or close her eyes and see images from the war in stark relief. But it was as if she were on firmer ground, and not at the mercy of memory's quicksand.

And fear is really the most omnipresent of emotions, isn't it? Fear and panic can be crippling for all concerned.

Leaving that which you love breaks your heart open. But you will find a jewel inside, and this precious jewel is the opening of your heart to all that is new and all that is different, and it will be the making of you—if you allow it to be.

There was no bathroom—there wouldn't be a bathroom until I was almost fourteen, the same year America put a man on the moon. But we had a proper outside WC with a tall rusting iron cistern high up on the wall and a chain for the flush. There was no mains drainage and it often fell to my father to unblock the septic because the access cover for the system that served the whole street was just outside our kitchen window. Oh, those Victorian builders were a clever lot!

but remember that each day you are weaving a memory. Make sure you don't look back at these times through a veil of tears.

coincidence was a shadow cast by truth.

My mum didn't date American soldiers during the war, though I think she was amused by them. Of course, you could get a reputation if you went out with American servicemen. It was okay to bring one home if you had family around to keep an eye on you, but a girl wouldn't want to go out with too many of those boys alone.

But there was something there in her eyes, something she recognized, as if it were an old friend to be welcomed. It was a certain resolve, a knowledge that the only way she could fight her way out of the abyss was to prove something to herself—that she could be brave, that she could survive and be strong.

Fancy 'avin' to say you work for the Murder Squad, eh, Miss? Don't exactly warm folk to you, does it?