Quotes from Jean Plaidy

Her fault had been in trying to keep it as tight as a mistress might. All a wife needed was a little more subtlety, and it had taken her two years of doubts and nightmares to realize this. Let him wander away from her, let him dally with others--it would but be to compare them with his incomparable queen.

think the Princess should read the New Testament both night and morning, and also certain selected portions of the Old Testament. She must become fully conversant with the gospels. She should, I believe also study Plutarch's Enchiridion, Seneca's Maxims, and of course Plato and Cicero." He glanced at his friend. "I suggest that Sir Thomas More's Utopia would provide good reading.

his lips. "I fear, Mama, that I am not. But I am innocent in this case.

She read there, mingling sensuality and primness; she saw the hypocrisy, the refusal to see himself except as he wished to be. There, in his face, were the marks of those characteristics which were at the very root of his nature and which had made him the man he was, the man who had sent thousands to their death, the murderer who saw himself as a saint.

Yet a simple ceremony in an English church, with no jewels, no brilliant company, no crown, could have made her the happiest woman in the world, providing the right man had shared that ceremony with her.

I found that married life gave me the necessary freedom to follow an ambition which had been with me since childhood; and so I started to write in earnest.

But our lives were not as they seemed, were they, Sophia? No one's life ever is.

Gentlemen, if my love for you equaled my ignorance of everything concerning you, it would indeed be unbounded.

I've always thought you've got to believe in luck to get it.

Of course he won my heart. Many children did. I often thought that I should have liked children of my own if it were not for the undignified manner of getting them.

The path to success is a thorny one, and the way is steep. There are many pitfalls. It is a fool who does not take advantage of a helping hand when it is offered.

So the puppy (the future George III) won't be bewolfenbütteled, he says. I'll teach him whether to defy me. I say he shall be bewolfenbütteled, and like it! (George II on a proposal to marry his grandson to a princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Jean Plaidy.)

Only by judging the Borgias against their own times can they arouse our sympathy, and only if they arouse our sympathy can they be understood. Below

I no longer fight, I accept.

all greatness must first take its shape in dreams.

In Spain to share a pleasure is a good thing because in sharing what is good one gives something worth having. To share one's sorrow is to beg that one's burden shall be partly carried by another. Spaniards are too proud to ask favors." The

One does not always realize at the time what effect historical events have upon our lives.

Imagine anyone asking Henry VIII or Elizabeth to settle a bill!

To love was the greatest adventure life had to offer; but to love was to suffer.

Vale la pena luchar por la libertad; vale la pena pagar un alto precio por ella, porque morir por la libertad es dejar esta vida en un derroche de gloria que destruye nuestras debilidades del pasado y nos vuelve uno con los héroes

sisters and brothers should never quarrel; they must always stand together against the rest of the world if need be.

Time is our friend in trouble," she said, "because it tells us that the sorrow cannot last for ever.

I wanted to escape from the cynical attitude of life where an action was deplored only when it did not bring material advantage.

It is to live that requires courage, not to die.