Quotes About Responsibility

was the king himself, solicitous for a mother-to-be, who had advised Rafe to send Helen to Kent, away from the pestilence: but now he has forgotten to ask after her.

because we must please her, you know?

Our possessions outlast us, surviving shocks we cannot; we have to live up to them, as they will be our witnesses when we are gone.

Listen, son, this is what I know: right is what you can get away with, and wrong is what they whip you for. As I'm sure life will instruct you, by and by

Somewhere—or Nowhere, perhaps—there is a society ruled by philosophers. They have clean hands and pure hearts. But even in the metropolis of light there are middens and manure-heaps, swarming with flies. Even in the republic of virtue you need a man who will shovel up the shit, and somewhere it is written that Cromwell is his name.

What use to the king is a servant who is distracted, merely for want of a piece of bread?

Is a man a victim, who walks onto a knife? Are you innocent, if you set up the damage for yourself?

Then after a day or two, Anne Madeleine simply added them to the number of her five children, who are fed on sight and conducted through the countryside on forced marches in an effort to subdue their spirits.

So many words,' Gregory says. 'So many words and oaths and deeds, that when folk read of them in time to come they will hardly believe such a man as Lord Cromwell walked the earth. You do everything. You have everything. You are everything. So I beg you, grant me an inch of your broad earth, Father, and leave my wife to me.

Christophe says, 'You are not sad, sir?' 'No. I am not sad. I am not allowed to be. I am too useful to be sad.

It seems there is no mercy in this world, but a kind of haphazard justice: men pay for crimes, but not necessarily their own.

he's going out with Suffolk; you'll have to

It was just that I was unsuited to being a child.

She asked me once. I failed her. If she asked me again, I would fail her again.

Why is it always little legs that have to save big legs? Just run upstairs and fetch me ....... It flattered you, when you were young. You thought you were important, indeed essential. He used to hurtle around Putney, on errands for Walter. More fool him.

It was too much for the Commons to digest, that rich men might have some duty to the poor.

You will see that it is not in your interests to protect the gentlemen who share your sin. Because if the position were reversed, believe me, they would not spare a thought for you.

It is not so much who is guilty, as whose guilt is of service to you. . . we are not priests. We don't want their sort of confession. We are lawyers. We want the truth little by little and only those parts of it we can use.

Darling Daddy, This is Rose. The shed needs new wires now it has blown up. Caddy is bringing home rock-bottom boyfriends to see if they will do for Mummy. Instead of you. Love, Rose.

Brain Juice was a recipe invented by Eve years before, when she had had to stay awake all day to look after Caddy and Indigo and Saffron, and all night to take care of the fragile and impermanent baby Rose. It was Coca-Cola with a great deal of instant coffee stirred into it. It was black and frothy and gritty, and it tasted like a primitive, medieval poison, but it banished sleep like magic.

There were no rules, only consequences.

He says he needs mothering." "....Even if he didn't need mothering, which after all is only another way of saying he needs a slave.

There were not rules, only consequences

As a mom I know that raising children is the hardest job there is.