Quotes from Elizabeth Peters

Twilight crept along the ground like a woman trailing long gray veils.

Men are frightful nuisances at times; how much simpler life would be if we women did not have to make allowances for their little peculiarities.

I had seen engravings of the Great Pyramid and read extensively about it; I thought I was prepared for the sight. But I was not. It was so much grander than I had imagined! The massive bulk bursts suddenly on one's sight as one mounts the steep slope leading up to the rocky platform. It fills the sky. And the color! No black-and-white engraving can possibly prepare one for the color of Egyptian limestone, mellow gold in the sunlight against a heavenly-blue vault.

Die Englânder! Niemals werde ich sie verstehen!

semaphored warning as well as I could. He took the hint.

Half the trouble in human relations arises from expecting human beings to conform to a single one-dimensional image. We are all hydra-headed monsters. But most people never learn that.

accepted the cup the servant handed him

I may say, without undue egotism, that when I make up my mind to do something, it is done quickly. The lethargic old city of the Popes fairly quaked under my ruthless hand during the following week.

None. I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle." Mr. Fletcher's pepper-and-salt eyebrows lifted. I added, "For myself, that is. I suppose it is well enough for some women; what else can the poor things do? But why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself!

woven basket he was

I should have been grateful to him, and I was—the way I was grateful to my dentist after he had filled a big cavity without anesthesia.

All right, Vicky. . . . I may call you Vicky, mayn't I? No, I said.

They say if you stand on the Champs Élysées, sooner or later you will meet everyone you've ever known.

hope I number patience among my virtues, but shilly-shallying, when nothing is to be gained by delay, is not a virtue.

Reputable scholars might have denied its authenticity, but there are always other scholars who disagree--and people will believe what they want to believe, never mind the evidence. If there is anything life has taught me, it is that there is no idea so absurd that someone will not accept it as truth, and no action so bizarre that it will not be justified in the eyes of a true believer.

Again the dainty handkerchief came into play. Emerson made clucking noises. I said nothing, but drank my whiskey in ladylike silence.

I knocked one of Tony's elbows out from under him so that his chin splashed into his coffee cup, and that ended that discussion.

He got to his feet--always a fascinating process to watch, because of the length of his arms and legs--and glowered down at me.

The hinges screamed like a wounded animal.

Blankenhagen sat twitching like a hen on a clutch of radioactive eggs.

Tony sat down with a thud. You're going to marry Schmidt?

spend the rest of his life nobly forgiving her. Nothing can be more infuriating than being forgiven over and over again.

could not endure a man who would let himself be ruled by me, and I would not endure a man who tried to rule me. However

Suddenly, without preliminary fluttering or blinking, the closed eyes opened. They were a true, clear green, an unusual color for human eyes. They looked translucent, like seawater, and they focused on Jean with an expression of concentrated malevolence made all the more alarming by contrast with the placidity of the face in which they were set. The woman's compressed lips parted. "Here, too, O Lord?" a plaintive voice inquired.