Quotes from Jeane Westin

Pain was the only sign to her that she was alive and could feel emotion.

The Tudors hated to be wrong, and therefore never were.

She had been born knowing that boldness erased fear, while cowardice invited it and earned her only more ill treatment. No matter how she shook with dread in private, she would never show fear before her questioners or her guards. In men's minds fear was a certain mark of guilt.

She was no sworn wife, but Robin was the only man she ever loved as a husband... though not as much as her crown and thrown. The truth that tore at her breast, turning her about in circles, because he had known... he had known his love was greater than hers. Though it was not, she never could explain it rightly. No man understood, that he was not everything to the woman he loved.

Like her father, Bess never forgot a hurt or a service.

Why do old men grow huge beards as if to proclaim a manhood that has long since fled?

Majesty, there is less danger in fearing too much than too little.

Sovereigns did not have the luxury of second-guessing or all future commands could be questioned. That could never be. God did not allow his anointed to be wrong.

I think hard times is harder on a man, 'cause a woman will do something. Women just seem to know where they can save or where they can help, more than a man. It's just a worry for him, and he feels so terrible when he can't take care of his family.

So here I was in San Francisco with a degree, and I thought it would make a difference. The first job I applied for was at American Insurance Company. I expected maybe a clerical job, but there were none there—those jobs weren't open for Oriental people at that time. Then I tried a ladies' apparel shop as a stock girl. That wasn't even open to me. Oh, they don't tell you right out to your face—but you have that feeling.

Robert bowed to the inevitable. The queen's motto, 'I see all and speak nothing." was as well chosen as any motto could be. He had almost made his old mistake of confusing what Elizabeth said with what she would do.

Have you all forgotten that I am Henry's spawn? And Anne Boleyn's . . . a name that does not pass my lips, but is forever on my mind? Who can doubt the courage of a woman who faced the ax by lifting up her long hair with a smile?

Sometimes Robert believed one thing and sometimes the other, and he wondered if that was true of all those who loved too much and in vain.

Like her father, Bess never forgot a hurt of a service.