Quotes by Historical Fiction Authors

She knew in her heart that to be without optimism that core of reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain was a fatal flaw the seed of death.
Anne Perry
How quickly a moment sinks into the past.
Anne Perry
To take for granted one's blessings is a damage to the soul, and in time one will lose them, simply from lack of care. One should never tire of nourishing and treasuring all that is lovely.
Anne Perry
Your own gown is most delicately suitable, both to the occasion and to yourself,' to be translated: Your gown is insipid and entirely forgettable. If you wear it on every other occasion this entire season, no one will notice or care.
Anne Perry
You can like people and still betray them, if it was for a cause you believed in passionately enough. You have to betray other people rather than betray yourself--if that's what it comes to.
Anne Perry
It is important for a woman to have the duplicity to make good use of whatever gifts she might have, however valueless they might seem... You have to have the inner strength to pursue your goal, and not care how many enemies you make along the road. It is not easy.
Anne O'Brien
As in all great cataclysmic events, men are forced to show their true colours. Some will achieve the status of legend for their courage, brilliance and dedication; some will possess all the same qualities unacknowledged; others will be plodders doing their best; and there will be those who will be what they have always been -- sewer rats.
Anne Rouen
You wanted a peaceful, comfortable Christmas, with all reminders of poverty, injustice, or other people's griefs well out of sight, so as not to disturb your pleasure. That isn't what Christmas is about, Wallace. Christmas is about offering hope to all people, not just those like ourselves. Christmas is about everyone: rich or poor, friend or stranger. The moment you exclude anyone, you exclude yourself.
Anne Perry
Sometimes we bring to a struggle or cause the gifts we see most clearly, a courage, a strength, or a charm others have told us we have. But often we find more is asked of us than that, more than we intended or thought we possessed. We are asked to offer that which we thought dearest, to forgive what seemed unpardonable, to face what we feared the most and endure it. Sometimes we have to travel to the last step a path that was not of our own choosing. But I promise you this ... it will lead to a greater joy in the end. The difficulty is that the end is beyond our sight, it is a matter of faith, not of knowledge.
Anne Perry
Like a brilliant shooting star, she had almost reached her zenith when her light was extinguished.
Anne Rouen
One day you will meet someone who will show you what you are made of. I only hope it is someone not forbidden to you ...
Anne Rouen
I could not give her my heart, because it already belonged to another; for I have only loved once.
Anne Rouen
And what she does not know, what nobody else knows but you, is that I have a special place where I go to be with her; my first, my only love.
Anne Rouen
What takes more courage. To live ... or to die?
Anne Rouen
She did not realise that there could be a joy - a spiritual ecstasy- in the touch of a certain man, or that she would long for his touch with all her being
Anne Rouen
To know, finally, what love is and not be allowed fulfilment ...
Anne Rouen
All of them. Fated to love in vain.
Anne Rouen
Once the spark of true love has been ignited, it cannot be quenched. It is there forever.
Anne Rouen
It is true, Monsieur, that when you die, the ones who love you come for you ... I have seen it.
Anne Rouen
It proved what he had always instinctively known.Love is Forever.
Anne Rouen
Now, at last, she understood her great attraction to him. Here was the companion of her spirit. Here, indeed, was love.
Anne Rouen
Why are we fated to love those we cannot have ...?
Anne Rouen
She was destroyed many years ago, La Belle, on the cobblestones of the alley beside the opera house ...
Anne Rouen
That was the worst truth of all: alone. The word was a kind of death.
Anne Perry
Disillusion in an ache that eats into the dreams of goodness, of love, of any value that matters - even to the very belief in life.
Anne Perry
And sometimes - to get what you want - you must be prepared to accept the apparently unacceptable.
Anne O'Brien
People only tell lies when the truth is disagreeable to them, or frightens them, or to cover sin.
Anne Perry
The truth can be very sharp. But it makes a cleaner wound than lies. It will not fester
Anne Perry
People lie to cover their mistakes, and then make even worse ones to cover their lies.
Anne Perry
...perhaps great sins start as simple weakness, and the consistent placing of self before others.
Anne Perry
Poverty doesn't make parents unfit any more than wealth deems them appropriate.
Anne Mateer
Sometimes when we are drowning in our own loss we lash out--anger is momentarily easier to cope with.
Anne Perry
He was a man built to yearn for what he could not have.
Anne Perry
I've often had to stand on the firm ground of my convictions when others thought I ought to be doing differently.
Anne Mateer
I don't expect answers from anyone. The most I ever hope for is that here and there one may find someone who at least acknowledges the question!
Anne Perry
He was perfectly capable of looking after himself, although after his marriage he had lost the knack for it. He missed the comfort of all the small things Charlotte did for him,but these were nothing compared to the loneliness. There was no one to talk to, with whom to share his feelings, to laugh, or to simply speak of the day.And he missed the sound of the children's voices, giggling, their running footsteps, their incessant questions and demands for his attention or approval. No one interrupted to say "Look at me, Papa" or "What is this for?" or "What does this mean?" or the favorite "Why?" Peace was not peace anymore, it was simply silence.
Anne Perry
Please don’t think so lightly of liking someone. It’s terribly important. It is a kind of loving, you know, and one that frequently lasts a lot longer than romance. You can fall out of love, as well in. Most of us do, especially if you don’t actually like the person as well. It doesn’t always grow into love by any means, but sometimes it does.
Anne Perry
We can become so cruel and so selfish when we are afraid.
Anne Perry