c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Now the city is at its loveliest. The crowds of summer and autumn have gone, the air has a new freshness, the light has that pale-gold quality unique to this time of year. There have been several weeks of this weather now, without a drop of rain.
— Lucy Foley, The Invitation
That spring was the start of everything, for me. Before then, I might have been half-asleep, drifting through life.
— Lucy Foley, The Invitation
Anything from Kipling
— Rudyard Kipling
What determines how we remember history and which elements are preserved and penetrate the collective consciousness? If historical novels stir your interest, pursue the facts, history, memories, and personal testimonies available. These are the shoulders that historical fiction sits upon. When the survivors are gone we must not let the truth disappear with them. Please, give them a voice.
— Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea
Matthew shook his head. “Whoever said anything of women in the Victorian era being prim and proper apparently hadn’t met Maxine Fleming.”Tahatan chuckled. “I’m sure a publisher somewhere would make a nice fortune with putting this into print. The fact is, people tend to look back on bygone times through rose-colored glasses. All eras have encouraged values that are pushed on the surface, but in the end, people are still people.
— Tiffany Apan, Descent
William made an ejaculation in his own language that I didn't understand, nor did the abbot understand it, and perhaps it was best for us both, because the word William uttered had an obscene hissing sound.
— Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
There is not a lost piece of yourself that can't be found in a good novel.
— Kimberly Jo Smith
I once heard an elder say that the dead who have no use for their words leave them as part of their children's inheritance. Proverbs, teeth suckings, obscenities, even grunts and moans once inserted in special places during conversations, all are passed along to the next heir.
— Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones
I enjoy writing historical fiction because it allows me to live more lives than just this one.
— Karen A. Chase
As I grow ever closer to the end of my time, I look back at this life and tell you that the only thing I would wish to give up is the regret I've carried in my heart for all these years. At long last I have come to realize the things I once counted as regrets were indeed blessings that I was too blind to see.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
It's no such thing! she said. It's friendship! And if you're a man who can't tell friendship from charity, then you're to be pitied!
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
Church words are easy to say, but they're not so easy to live by.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
As sorry as I feel for myself, I feel even sorrier for her. I know she's afraid of staying and equally as frightened of going. Just as this land is a part of me, this house is a part of her. Selling off these things piece by piece is like cutting away chunks of her heart. I promised to make it better, but only God knows whether or not that's a promise I'll be able to keep.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
Cyrus is the meat and potatoes of my life, but Prudence was a cupcake I could enjoy just for the sheer sweetness of being with her.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
He searched his mind for something more to say, something to take away her pain, but he could find nothing. There were no words to ease such a pain. He knew because the ache in his heart was as great as hers.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
Here's to the future, he said and lifted the glass to his mouth. There was a lump of regret stuck in his throat as he spoke the words, but he washed it down with the whiskey.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
Madame, I believe the greatest sin against God is to be false. If one is not true to one's self, then it is impossible to be true to God. I bear you no ill will for following your heart.
— Diane Haeger, Courtesan
A man's pride will cause him to do things you never dreamed possible. He got fired up about being right and blocked out everything else.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
A man cannot change who he is. He can only hope that with age comes the wisdom to see his folly. I would like to believe I have achieved that.
— Bette Lee Crosby, The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd
It's said truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction makes truth a friend, not a stranger.
— Avi, Sophia's War: A Tale of the Revolution
You may be surprised what we use our dreams to do, how we drape them over our sight and carry them like amulets to protect us from evil spells.
— Edwidge Danticat
How age enamels us, she would say. It builds up in layers and locks us inside our own skin, stopping us from breaking out, preventing the outside from burrowing in.
— Rosie Thomas
The tall, thin serious man strode in, his dark cloak billowing so dramatically it threatened to extinguish the lamp flame with its draught. He advanced like a malevolent shadow consuming the dim orange light, filling the room with a presence almost more than human.
— Gregory Figg
I’m not only my father’s daughter, but also a daughter of the nation he founded. And protecting both is what I’ve always done.
— Laura Kamoie, America's First Daughter
Sons of a revolution fight for liberty. They give blood, flesh, limbs, their very lives. But daughters . . . we sacrifice our eternal souls.
— Laura Kamoie, America's First Daughter
Perhaps Zeus was king, but I was Spartan, a princess twice over, and queen of Athens besides. I knew my duty. And I would rule my own fate.
— Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta
Tolerance over time breeds resentment. Only through understanding, that comes from the acceptance of one another's differences, shall we find true peace.
— Erndell Scott, Paper Boats
He watched the young actress playing the central part of a wife who mistakenly believes her husband has wronged her. She was overly trained in the teapot school of acting, striking expressive poses and attitudes as the mood of the story demanded.
— Stephen Harrigan, A Friend of Mr. Lincoln
Stay with me?” His fingers wound into my hair, and his arm tightened around me. “Always.
— Amalia Carosella, Helen of Sparta
Then the vulture swooped down and away, racing the LeTort spring to the Conodoguinet Creek from there to the Susquehanna river and from there to the sea. Same river my ancestors took to reach the places where they hunted and farmed and buried their dead.
— Michele McKnight Baker
What to do now, Father? I am going to die like a killer, and I do not even remember killing.”“You can pray, my son. You are in the hands of God now,” said the good priest.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Up and up they went, still a cable's length apart; but slowly, for the ape was footsore and despondent. As for Stephen, by the sixth-hundred step his calves and thighs were ready to burst, and at each rise now they forced themselves upon his attention. Up and up, up and up until the ridge was no great way off at last. But before they reached it, the path took another turn; and when he too came round the corner he was on top of the ape. She was sitting on a stone, resting her feet. He scarcely knew what to do; it seemed an intrusion. 'God be with you, ape.' he said in Irish, which in his confusion seemed more appropriate.
— Patrick O'Brian
What you are about to witness is a blot upon the civilization of the twentieth century."- Sing Sing Deputy Warden Spencer Miller, Addressing Antonio Pontón’s execution witnesses on January 7, 1916
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
The Porto Ricans at Harvard University believe that the crime was a horrible one and it should be punished, but death penalty would add to, and not detract from, its horrors,” the Harvard students wrote. One of the student signatures on the letter was by Pedro Albizu y Campos who would later become a Puerto Rican promoter of ideals for the island’s independence from the United States.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
On Thanksgiving Day, during our family gathering, we pray you to have mercy on Antonio Pontón …
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Dear Governor Whitman, … Our father is not a simple criminal. … He was harassed by more ideas than his mind could stand. …
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
The physiological effects of an electrocution are severe and painful. Besides launching the body into violent convulsions, the electrocution of a human being causes massive destruction throughout the body.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
There is always hope for a reprieve, my friend,” Stielow said. “You have to get the governor to pardon you if the courts fail on you. This is an unlikely thing, although possible. The last thing you hold on to ‘til the last second is hope. Hope is what keeps us doomsmen sane, for the most part. A miracle.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Antonio looked down, silent, as Shillitoni kept talking. There he was, among cold-blooded killers, talking to a gangster. A much different picture than a year prior.“Can’t trust priests, can’t trust cops either. Can’t trust nobody! Whaddaya say?”“I am not like you,” Antonio said. “I’m not like them, either. That’s what I say. I am not a cold-blooded killer!”“Ya killed, you a killa! There’s not’ng more to it!” Shillitoni said.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
The Death House back then was a self-contained unit, with its own hospital, kitchen, exercise yard and visiting room. The cells were inadequate, dark, and did not have proper sanitary facilities or ventilation. One window and skylight furnished the ventilation and light of the entire unit. Twelve cells were on the lower tier, six on each side, facing each other, with a narrow corridor between them. Five cells were located in an upper tier. There was an area the prisoners called the Dance Hall that housed a prisoner to be executed on his last day. The narrow corridor connected the Dance Hall to the execution room, where the Electric Chair resided. The prisoners named this corridor the Last Mile or the Green Mile, because this was the last walk a prisoner would take all the way to the small green riveted door at the end of the corridor, on his way to the execution room.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
In Sing Sing Prison, in a ghastly white room stands a chair. Its parts are heavy joinings of oak, riveted and screwed together; its strong legs fastened to the floor with teeth and claws of steel. It bites into the marrow of men with fangs of fire. For this is the faldstool of bloody human justice, the prayer-chair of man’s vengeance upon man. Into it are strapped ... men who have killed other men. In it, for a high moral purpose, erring human lives are shocked across the barrier into night and the grave. - Edward H. Smith (1918)
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Pardon me for this resolution … I know that this will be a disgrace that I bring to my people, but I cannot help it. Love is the blame for it. I go in peace ... pray for me ... good-bye all.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
¡Hundieron el Maine!” said Manuel to his wife Etervina, as he read the newspaper on February 16, 1898. “They sank the Maine!
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached out from the past to share their stories. “Hocus Pocus!” she thought, smiling. Her inside joke was a source of inspiration. But her imagination was not far-fetched.My second cousin, twice removed, is a family historian. She is also a lawyer. And this is why I chose her. I needed her to do me a favor. I chose her, although she is a business lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. That was fine by me. It’s not like my lawyers did a superb job at defending me. I was wrongfully executed.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
THEY CALLED HIM “Ponce de León” because he acted as though he could conquer anything and anyone. He enchanted every young woman that came his way with piropos (pick-up lines) and clever sweet talk.  “Has spring started? I just saw the first flower!” Antonio whispered as he walked by a group of blushing young ladies, tipping off his white Panama hat as a silent ‘How do you do?’ He was never at a loss for words.  “What are you doing out this morning? Don’t you know that stars only come out at night?” was one of his favorite lines. And he had many. On a good day.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Manuel acquired as much land as he could afford and refused to sell it to anyone, even if he was not planting anything on it. “La tierra no se acaba” (“the land does not perish”), he often said.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Manuel adapted well to the Puerto Rican culture and its African and Taíno Indian influences, which permeated into the local language. Taíno words such as tabaco (tobacco), barbacoa (barbecue), canoa (canoe), and hamaca (hammock) remain in use today in Spanish, English and other world languages. Also, the word cigar or cigarro is derived from the Taíno word sik’ar, a Taíno gathering or festival where tobacco played a main role.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
And then there was nature’s music. The small frog the locals called coquí was a treasured new sound, a lullaby sung by the chanting Puerto Rican native species. Sometimes, while he lay in bed awake at night, Manuel tried to imitate the sound of the little frog. He tried to sing it at first. But then he realized he could get the sound just right by whistling it. “Coquí! Coquí!” Manuel whistled. He improved his coquí whistle every day, until he sounded just as the little frog. People in town laughed at Manuel practicing his coquí sounds. Sometimes they could hear his whistles from outside the store, as though Manuel was carrying out a conversation with the small creatures.The tiny coquí sang through the nights and soothed Manuel’s sleep, keeping him company and reminding him that he was not alone.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
¡Zape! (Shoo!) Go away, go away, espíritu maligno (bad spirit)!” they sang. “Go back to where you came from!”The festive musical celebration combined the prayers and songs with expressive dancing to the rhythm of percussion and string instruments, which accompanied the child’s ascent into heaven, where she would become an angel. Women, men and children ate, drank, prayed, sang and danced. They also played games like la gallina ciega (the blind chicken) where children tried to escape the touch of a blindfolded child who would walk around trying to feel for them. Whoever she touched was disqualified from the game. The baquiné lasted throughout the night. In a time when so many children perished to disease, this was a way for the child’s loved ones to say good-bye and endure the painful loss. But when all were gone, the crude reality set in. Manuel will never forget the image of those poor parents, devastated, sitting alone right next to the altar where their child lay dead, weeping desperately at her loss.He prayed for Ana’s soul. He prayed for those parents.And he prayed that he would never have to suffer the agony of losing a child.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
The United States media is advocating for the country to go to battle with Spain and take over Cuba and Puerto Rico to gain advantage over the Atlantic,” said Manuel. “They have swayed public opinion. I would not be surprised that the countries go into war, and we are caught in the middle.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
It’s over,” said Carmona to the town’s men at the casa alcaldía (city hall). “Word is that the United States Flag is waving in Guánica, Coamo and at El Morro and San Cristóbal Castles in San Juan. Puerto Rico is now United States territory.”“Another transition!” Manuel sighed. “What will this bring?
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
¡Ay, las faldas!” (“Oh, the skirts!”) he sighed, shaking his head and winking with a mischievous smile. While admitting women were his “Achilles heel,” Antonio, as many young men of the times did, also disclaimed responsibility, as though he had no control over his behavior or desires. Loving the opposite sex was “the natural thing to do for a man,” he thought.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
As the children left, Antonio shifted his gaze towards his father and gently waved at his family, while they returned the gesture.With half a smile and a tight lip, Antonio’s green eyes spoke, “Adiós” (“Good-bye”).Then, he turned and walked towards the green metal door of the steam cargo vessel that swallowed him away.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
All Americans were immigrants at one point or another,” he explained in his letters to his parents. Even his father Manuel migrated to Puerto Rico. Manuel was deemed a Peninsular, an immigrant from Spain, and sometimes even the Puerto Rican-born, the criollos, resented the Spanish-born newcomers. Manuel was familiar with being singled out, although not quite as much as Antonio felt while in New York. “It is amazing how people tend to forget their past,” Antonio wrote to his parents, surprised. “I recall what you told me about Maestro Rafael, Papá, when he said to you ‘never forget your history.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Her heart now pounding, a strange feeling of combined fear and happiness invaded her. She took a deep breath. Her lungs filled with fresh air. An invigorating rush of electricity all over her body overcame her. “So, is this how falling in love feels?” she thought.She knew the answer.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Do you know who Samuel Langhorne Clemens is, Antonio?” Bessie asked.“No, chood I?” he said. “He is best known as Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” she said.“I have herd of the story, but I hav not red the booc,” he said.“Well, you should read it,” she said. “It is excellent reading. An American classic. Mark Twain worked in Schoharie for a while,” she said.“Is that so?” he said.“Yes, he worked as a brakeman on the Schoharie railroad station on Depot Street the winter of 1879, three years after he wrote his famous book,” Bessie said.“Why would he do that, a famos author?” Antonio asked.“A self-published author, I should add.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Antonio could not stop thinking about Dean Fiero’s words during his welcoming speech, “Look to your left; now to your right. One of you will not be here in 1915!” These words were used to intimidate freshman law students to draw their attention to the importance of being diligent in their forthcoming studies. They still are.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
He woke up to knocks on his door. “Just a minute!” he said out loud. “I’m coming!”He got up and straightened himself as he opened the door.“Besi!” he said, overcome with emotion.He held her and never let go.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. - Sixth Amendment, United States Constitution
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
No person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …- Fifth Amendment, United States Constitution
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
Antonio’s will was cursed. Not once, but twice.
— Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini, Antonio's Will
All the characters in this book are fictional, but they are as real to me as the members of my own family. I had to tell their story because they could not.
— Maral Boyadjian
Sheftu,” she whispered, “it's all over.”“Nay, little one. It's just beginning. Many things are beginning.
— Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Mara, Daughter of the Nile
Some things can be recovered. Some things can be restored. But some lost things, we seek forever.
— Margaret George, Helen of Troy
It's surprising how much life can change in a minute, how we can be swept up in a moment by kind words or affection craved for a lifetime. We'll do anything to feel alive, to feel human.
— Brittany Weekley/Monroe Starr, The Secret Life of Thomas Commons
Only danger is real, and difficulty. Yet we live to make our lives safe - and those of others. (..) I will fight my own people to keep them from fighting, for as long as can be. Never fight, until it is unsafe not to fight, unsafe for our souls as well as our bodies. Then fight for their safety, - but when it is won, remember that safety itself is unsafe. For what is safety? It is sleepy thing. It does not make one happy. It does not remind one that it is good to be alive. Life is taken for granted, so it is no longer surprise. It grows dull and monotonous, one lives as a tree or a cabbage or a cow in the straw of the byre. Our forefathers scorned "a straw death". A straw life is worse.
— Margaret Irwin, Elizabeth, Captive Princess
But then, she wonders,just what kind of man would ever give her the courage to marry at all- to overcome that dreadful fear of death that seemed always to accompany the very thought of love? It was illogical, idiotic and childish. And yet the child was with her always; and always she would be afraid unless someone could place a light down there inside that dark and chilly heart of hers and chase all the ghosts away - the ghosts of Katherine Howard, of Jane Seymour and, not least, that of her own poor mother. They accompanied her always, those spirits - especially at this kind of time, a time of being alone, of being feminine and reflective. They would all gather round to whisper in her ear and warn her - so that even as she looks up once more into her mirror she almost expects to see them there, ranged behind her shoulders, their faces full of concern and anxiety. Never trust them - never trust the men, for they will betray you always the moment you surrender to them!
— Robert Stephen Parry, Virgin and the Crab - Sketches, Fables and Mysteries from the Early Life of John Dee and Elizabeth Tudor
The bands were everywhere, close and faraway, a blend of discordant noise. He passed close to one now, a half-dozen drummers pounding away, a sergeant leading them in a rhythm that was no rhythm at all, and behind, men with fifes, squealing out something that had no resemblance to a song.
— Jeff Shaara
It was always too late to retract, to try and retrieve what one had done.
— Margaret Irwin, Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain
The moment was all we truly had: a succession of moments, a triumphal march of them, to create a life beyond compare.
— Margaret George
I will not live to see you grow to womanhood, so I have written my story for you, my beloved grandchild, so that you can know the truth of what happened here so many years ago. I'm sure that in the course of your life you have wonderd about whispered conversations that stop when you are near. Wondered too about the knowing looks cast at you and your family. I am equally sure that your father has never found it in his heart to tell you the truth you are about to read. I beg you not to be angry with hime for withholding the truth from you. He has suffered greatly for my sins.
— Susan Boles
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, Angel of Song
History tells us what people do
—  historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.
Dragons don't ask for maidens, he said. Dragons are offered maidens. Alys shook her head to show she didn't understand.Is a king likely to be a maiden? Or a village headman? It's the men who make the laws that decree that maidens be offered.
— Vivian Vande Velde
Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. - Captain Roque Carnicero
— Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
The porcelain doll residing in her white-pillared dollhouse was a mirage.
— Katlyn Charlesworth, The Patriot's Daughter
What’s bosoms?” Cade asked.“You’ll find out when you get older,” Jake said."A lot older," Colt said.Last Promise
— Scarlett Dunn, Last Promise
Julia Woodhull was many things: a lady of secrets, a patriot’s niece, and a dead man’s daughter. But one thing Julia Woodhull was most certainly not was a fool.
— Katlyn Charlesworth, The Patriot's Daughter
He who whets his steel, whets his courage.
— Steven Pressfield
An American Family Sampler is a book any reader will find insightful, thoroughly researched, and fun to read. Robert Frump, author, award winning journalist, business leader
— Donald Mazzella
Mr. Edwards admired the well-built, pleasant house and heartily enjoyed the good dinner. But he said he was going on West with the train when it pulled out. Pa could not persuade him to stay longer."I'm aiming to go far West in the spring," he said. "This here, country, it's too settled up for me. The politicians are a-swarming in already, and ma'am if'n there's any worse pest than grasshoppers it surely is politicians. Why, they'll tax the lining out'n a man's pockets to keep up these here county-seat towns...""Feller come along and taxed me last summer. Told me I got to put in every last thing I had. So I put in Tom and Jerry, my horses, at fifty dollars apiece, and my oxen yoke, Buck and Bright, I put in at fifty, and my cow at thirty five.'Is that all you got?' he says. Well I told him I'd put in five children I reckoned was worth a dollar apiece.'Is that all?' he says. 'How about your wife?' he says.'By Mighty!' I says to him. 'She says I don't own her and I don't aim to pay no taxes on her,' I says. And I didn't.
— Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter
He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being." -Jean Valjean about Cossette-
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
It was all her doing. She had cried wolf and the wolf had come.
— Jason Hewitt, The Dynamite Room
Six wives the King's had now.' Barak's words dragged me from my reverie. 'We can't even get one between us.
— C.J. Sansom
He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being." He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being." -Jean Valjean about Cossette-
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Words had failed us that night, and I'd welcomed the silence. Words had escaped me the next morning as well but in a different way, when I came to realize that I was married to a fisherman for the rest of my days."--Abigail Whimble, Return to the Outer Banks House
— Diann Ducharme
My dear boy, in Ireland the midwife uses one hand to hold the baby's best fighting arm from the font water, and grips its jaws with the other lest the goes to litigation about it. Says O'LiamRoe
— Dorothy Dunnett
Moron, your bus is leaving-from Groundhogs Day Bill Murray
— Aimee' Bejarano, Angelica: You Have Chosen Well
Rumors are the children of truth.
— Danny M. Cohen, Train
I guess I'd rather have a truthful neighbor who says he hates me than a lyin' one who claims he loves me.
— David Hopper, In Spirit & Truth
Yessir, some things is sin 'cause God says so. Some things is sin 'cause they hurt other people. And some things is just pure-dee stupid.
— David Hopper, In Spirit & Truth
I’m not trying to start an argument with you,” William assured him. “I suppose I don’t know what it’s like to be a true revolutionary, though I think I’ve held some…similar…ideals. At times. Thought I could change things, if I fought hard enough.”“What did you try to change?”“Myself, in hopes that it would change others’ opinions of me.”“That is a bit more selfish than what we aspire to,” Luis clarified.William shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, I pressed others to change as well. Guess I just didn’t fight hard enough for any of it.
— T.L.  Walker, The Way of Reckoning
Not strictly one of mine, but worth repeating! A very forceful old lady in these parts, when referring to the eight novels of the Angel Mountain Saga,was heard to say: "You know them books by that fellow Brian John? If I was you I wouldn't believe a single word. Take it from me. It's lies -- all lies!
— Brian John, On Angel Mountain
I aim to make the fiction flexible so that it bends itself around the facts as we have them. Otherwise I don’t see the point. Nobody seems to understand that. Nobody seems to share my approach to historical fiction. I suppose if I have a maxim, it is that there isn’t any necessary conflict between good history and good drama.
— Hilary Mantel
A little man in a threadbare coat spoke up for the poor as if he really knew what he was talking about. The women with the flowers threw them down for him. “That’s Robert Speer,” one said. “Something like that. He’s our man.
— Marge Piercy
Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.
— Hilary Mantel
Once you're labeled as mentally ill, and that's in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artifact of your mental illness.
— Hilary Mantel
She was as lovely as ever, my Jessie Anne. I paused for a moment, taking her beauty in, laying up this vision of her in the deepest and most secret place of my mind, allowing the sight of her to renew my spirit. I stepped slowly down to the platform, never allowing my gaze to drift from her. Jessie Anne was looking toward the front of the car, and it was a moment or two before she turned and spotted me.The bright and hopeful smile I had so expected and longed for darkened, just for a moment to be sure, but long enough for me to recognize a fleeting glimpse of shock and anguish, possibly of horror. No longer did she see the man she had known, the man she had given her life to. No, she saw me for the man I truly was, the man with blood on his hands.
— Karl A. Bacon, An Eye for Glory: The Civil War Chronicles of a Citizen Soldier
Aaron reached into his jacket pocket and took out his Bible, a gift from his father, Captain Benjamin K. Matthews, on the the day he had ridden off to war. Aaron opened to the Psalms, intending to read, but his eyes were heavy and closed against his will. O death, where is thy sting? Pastor Blackwell had told him that death had no power over him, but he sure felt that sting now. O grave, where is thy victory? How much longer would it be? Just four miles from home. Would Mama ever know?Shiloh, the place of peace. Good ground to die on. Holy ground.
— Karl A. Bacon, Until Shiloh Comes
It takes courage to stand for what you believe in.
— James  Jones
Sapphires for my bride-to-be and a severed head for the king my brother," said Duke Richard cheerfully. "As St Paul pointed out, gifts may vary but the spirit is the same. In the present instance, a spirit of goodwill.
— Reay Tannahill, The Seventh Son
When we decided to move West, I worried about how to defend my family and my stock from Indians, but I never worried about inheriting one!”--from Prairie Grace when Georgia's father Thomas realizes gravely ill Gray Wolf has been left at their doorstep
— Marilyn Bay Wentz
The empire long united must divide, long divided must unite; this is how it has always been.
— Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 1
Some day...as you grow older, you will find imagination sometimes produces a truth that is greater than any fact.
— James  Jones
Thomas slammed his fist on the table, sending eating utensils flying. “Shameful! It is downright shameful that so-called men of God would use religion to manipulate people.”--from Prairie Grace when Thomas learns how the Indian agents and others are stealing from Native Americans
— Marilyn Bay Wentz
Of all the things I dislike, I hate women worst.
— James  Jones
Did you ever hear the one about how every living woman dies three times? Once when she is seduced of her virginity, once when she is seduced of her freedom (I believe they call it marriage), and once when she is seduced of her husband.
— James  Jones
...homosexuality is the direct result of chastity in women.
— James  Jones
You’ll likely always have some reason or other to hang onto that girl. You just want her cause she was married to your son, and I understand that, he was a friend to me like a brother, near the only family I ever knew, and I miss him almost as much as you. But I need me a woman.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
All of my books are acts of subversion disguised as historical fiction.
— Kelly Gardiner
The greatest gift you can give an author is turning the page.
— Richard E Valdez, Light in the Darkness
Tastes change, Cherie. I find the older I get the more I like to be reminded of my youth.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
War’s all either country knows, and everything seems to depend on it now.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
I do not need to understand words to know he is disappointed I am not a boy. Some things need no translation. And I know, because my body remembers without benefit of words, that men who do not welcome girl-babies will not treasure me as I grow to woman - though he call me princess just because the Guru told him to.I have come so far, I have borne so much pain and emptiness!But men have not yet changed.
— Shauna Singh Baldwin, What the Body Remembers
What do we do if we come across trouble, sir?' Cahill asked, slapping at a fly. 'As much as I enjoy giving the rebel turds a walloping, it should be down to the Militia to keep the buggers in check.''They are doing their job,' Mullone said, glancing at a free-standing Celtic Cross that had once been a prominent feature beside the road, but was now strangled with weeds, besieged with dark moss and deeply pitted with age.'If you call plundering, fighting and torture work, sir.''You don't have much faith in the peace talks then, Seán?''No, sir. There's more chance of me taking holy orders and becoming the Pope than there is of peace,' Cahill replied. 'The negotiations that spout from the politicians mouths are nothing but wet farts.'-from Liberty or Death
— David        Cook, Liberty or Death
Love, I think, is by necessity constructed of a ladder of lies you climb together.
— Kimberly Elkins, What Is Visible
Once a man is truly dead and carried pale and cold across the Styx--once Old Bones has put an arm about his shoulders and walked him through the Gate into Darkness--might Science yet summon him back?
— Ian Weir, Will Starling: A Novel
What do we do if we come across trouble, sir?' Cahill asked, slapping at a fly. 'As much as I enjoy giving the rebel turds a walloping, it should be down to the Militia to keep the buggers in check.''They are doing their job,' Mullone said, glancing at a free-standing Celtic Cross that had once been a prominent feature beside the road, but was now strangled with weeds, besieged with dark moss and deeply pitted with age.'If you call plundering, fighting and torture work, sir.''You don't have much faith in the peace talks then, Seán?''No, sir. There's more chance of me taking holy orders and becoming the Pope than there is of peace,' Cahill replied. 'The negotiations that spout from the politicians mouths are nothing but wet farts.
— David        Cook, Liberty or Death
I offer you your life, friend, and recommend you take it.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
Atty’s eyes rested on Darby with all the subtlety of a dog watching his food bowl being filled!
— Tricia Murphy, Aine
In the face of all his handicaps, Jurgis was obliged to make the price of a lodging, and of a drink every hour or two, under penalty of freezing to death.
— Upton Sinclair, The Jungle
Brother," Artemis chided. "You do not help my hunters. You do not look at, talk to, or flirt with my Hunters. And you do not call them sweetheart.
— Rick Riordan, The Titan's Curse
This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray.""Go astray?""Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure.
— Rick Riordan, The Titan's Curse
Lightening flashed again and again but above the shriek of the wind and the pounding hail they never heard the thunder.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
Dead man shouldn’t have no fears. Makes his passing easier.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
What one of us wants we all want. You a man of the earth as you are, you ought to have known we hunt in packs. And now I come to finish you.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
She ran the harder and zagged more erratically, and in the wreckage left from the hurricane the girl misjudged her path and ran straight into the old well. She didn’t even scream.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
You want a sermon? Jesus died and resurrected and then run off to Heaven to leave us sinners here. Amen.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
The oaks along the ridge were writhing like tortured epileptics in the winds, and she could make out through the thick rain a cascade of water like a cataract come roiling down the inside slope toward her; a vast arching spray exploded bright against the dark sky as the Gulf slammed over the chenier.
— Samuel Snoek-Brown, Hagridden
So you do enjoy my lovemaking?"She lifted an eyebrow. "If you can't tell that, sir, you are blind and deaf and probably stupid."If he'd been a peacock, he would have been strutting about, displaying his feathers.
— Sabrina Jeffries, How the Scoundrel Seduces
You are a woman born of secrets and sadness. It will either destroy your future or lead you to greatness. A handsome gentleman with eyes like the sky and hair like a raven's wing will come into your life. If you let him, he will become the hand of your vengeance. If you let him,he will shatter your heart.
— Sabrina Jeffries, How the Scoundrel Seduces
About Anna Faktorovich's "Romances of George Sand": “What a read! Not lacking in action and very imaginative.
— Belinda Jack, George Sand: A Woman's Life Writ Large
She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from another world:--"And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you."She tried to smile once more and expired.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
They would never forget the war. The world wouldn’t let them, and neither would history.
— Lee Strauss, Playing with Matches
Mogadishu the beautiful - your white-turbaned mosques, baskets of anchovies as bright as mercury, jazz and shuffling feet, bird-boned servant girls with slow smiles, the blind white of your homes against the sapphire blue of the ocean - you are missed, her dreams seem to say.
— Nadifa Mohamed, The Orchard of Lost Souls
In any case how many took the oath and are now licking the toes of the whiteman?No, you take an oath to confirm a choice already made. The decision to lay or not lay your life for the people lies in the heart. The oath is the water sprinkled on a man's head at baptism
— Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat
In her orchard the trees had been born from deaths
—  they marked and grew from the remains of the children that had passed through her.
Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life.”Patricia Briggs.
— Demetra Angelis Foustanellas, Secrets In A Jewellery Box
In Venice, things not always as they first appear. I contemplate this observation from my post on the aft deck of one of Master Fumagalli’s gondolas, taking in the panorama of bridges, domes, bell towers, and quaysides of my native city. I row into the neck of the Grand Canal, and, one by one, the reflection of each colorful façade appears, only to dissipate into wavering, shimmering shards under my oar.
— Laura Morelli, The Gondola Maker
It's history as it should have happened. It's history made better.
— R.A. McCandless, Tears of Heaven
'Are our gods better than Olaf's god?' Alfdis laughed. 'That's a silly question. Gods are gods. Our gods have been with us since the beginning of the world. We sacrifice to them, and they aid us when they see fit. Other people have their own gods and their own ways of dealing with them. That's their concern.' 
— James Erich, Seidman
Every day Fu-shee, the smaller children, and I fan out in the hills around Green Dragon to strip trees of their bark and leaves, dig up roots and search for wild grass. We'll eat anything, and we have. But you can't eat a leather belt like it's a crisp cucumber. You soak it, boil it, and chew on it for days.
— Lisa See
Largely, now, it was not anger he felt, but rather a kind of bone-scraping, quiet, ever-present sorrow. To come to the place that was supposed to stay the same, to come and find it changed. Dr. Miller had warned him against what he called the 'geographic cure.' You can't fix yourself by going somewhere else, he'd said. You'll always take yourself along.
— Elizabeth Graver, The End of the Point
Even still, it wasn't over. For if a battle could be won so easily, men would soon forget its horrors and clamor for it all the more. War would come more than once or twice a generation. Easy victories would produce men who were struck dumb with their own unbelievably improbable successes. Such men wold begin to think they had devised not the superior tactic, but rather the supreme tactic at winning
— Jason Born, Wald Vengeance
Septimus grinned. "It's not coins I seek. I seek the power of Hercules.
— Jason Born, Wald Vengeance
The great Sugambrian shrugged. "I did. I supposed you've proven your worth. But no man should have to kill his own father. I should know.
— Jason Born, Wald Vengeance
But the living must fear death, or they would not struggle to stay alive. from 'The Fallen Kings.
— Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
But the living must fear death, or they would not struggle to stay alive.
— Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Her entire life, she’d been told sin was wrong, a black and white interpretation of what is evil and what is holy in the world—colored like a priest’s robe and collar—but she never believed it to be true. Sin was colorful: scarlet like rose blood, azure like skin deprived oxygen, violet as bruises, jade as rot; a colorful contradiction to the darkness and blinding light all are taught sin and holiness to be.
— Madi Merek, Message to New York
...it has always been my temperament to prefer a tiny amount of the excellent to a plenitude of the mediocre...
— Robert   Harris, An Officer and a Spy
I'd rather make a good run than a bad stand.
— Margaret Walker, Jubilee
The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow.
— G. M. Trevelyan
I realize that I can laugh, that it is possible to be happy, that laughter and hope can come back to me.
— Philippa Gregory, The Constant Princess
Isabel Valverde was coming home. The brief, terrible letter from her brother had brought her across five thousand miles of ocean, from the New World to the Old, and during the long voyage she thought she had prepared herself for the worst. But now that London lay just beyond the next bend of the River Thames, she dreaded what awaited her. The not knowing – that was the hardest. Would she find her mother still a prisoner awaiting execution? Horrifying though that was, Isabel could at least hope to see her one last time. Or had her mother already been hanged?
— Barbara Kyle, The Queen's Gamble
Snow crunched under the feet of three cloaked figures – a queen, her lady, and a gravedigger – as they hurried along a moonlit path in Windsor Castle's lower ward. The gravedigger pushed a cart that held a slab of marble, his pick and shovel, and some straw. When the trio reached the steps of St. George's Chapel, Queen Mary stopped. She turned her head, pushing aside the fur of her hood, and a gust of wind needled her with crystallized snow. She looked back at her attendants. Was she wrong to trust them with this night's work?
— Barbara Kyle, The King's Daughter
When giving up is not an option, you survive at any cost.
— Liliana Shelbrook, Lantern in the Mist
Fenella Doorn watched the unfamiliar wreck of a ship ghosting into her bay. Crippled by cannon fire, she thought. What else could do such damage? The foremast was blown away, as well as half the mainmast where a jury rig clung to the jagged stump, and shot holes tattered the sails on the mizzen. And yet, to Fenella’s experienced eye the vessel had an air of defiance. Demi-cannons hulked in the shadowed gun ports. This ship was a fighter, battered but not beaten. With fight still in her, was she friend or foe?
— Barbara Kyle, The Queen's Exiles
The night of the fireworks changed the course of many lives in England, though no one suspected the dark future as hundreds of courtiers stared, faces upturned in delight, at the starbursts of crimson, green, and gold that lit up the terraces, gardens, and pleasure grounds of Rosethorn House, the country home of Richard, Baron Thornleigh. That night, no one was more proud to belong to the baron’s family than his eighteen-year-old ward, Justine Thornleigh; she had no idea that she would soon cause a deadly division in the family and ignite a struggle between two queens. Yet she was already, innocently, on a divergent path, for as Lord and Lady Thornleigh and their multitude of guests watched the dazzle of fireworks honoring the spring visit of Queen Elizabeth, Justine was hurrying away from the public gaiety. Someone had asked to meet her in private.
— Barbara Kyle, Blood Between Queens
Please do not mistake me for a twopenny villain. I do nothing without a purpose.
— Donna Thorland, The Turncoat
He could inspire ballads. He could inspire wars.
— Eli Easton, The Lion and the Crow
Rooks have clustered on either side of the long road. It is as if they line a grand parade route for our passage. Their black feathers are stark as soot against the white road and the snow. They stab at the ground with their strange bare bills and gray unfeathered faces. The birds are like rough-edged black stones on a string around this stripped cold neck of road. The old books tell us rooks bring the virtuous dead to heaven’s gate.
— Ned Hayes, Sinful Folk
So why had he come? He'd said he'd had no choice, but for centuries men had chopped off their own limbs, faked insanity, gone into hiding or to prison rather than to war. Was there some dark flaw in his psyche? Did he have some perverse need to destroy? To kill?
— Dominique Wilson, The Yellow Papers
He didn't know what he was anymore – not truly Chinese, for he had spent too long in the West, adopted too many Western ideas, but neither did he feel truly Westernised. There had been times when he had thought himself so, but a glimpse at his reflection quickly showed him the impossibility of such thoughts. No, rather, he felt suspended between two worlds, never to truly belong to either. The Yellow Papers
— Dominique Wilson
America at a turning point! But in 1813 the United States and Nathan Jeffries may lose everything; blockaded, imprisoned, raided, massacred, Americans are feeling the wrath of British forces on land and sea. Nathan Jeffries, son of Captain William Jeffries and Quaker wife Amy, is also haunted by betrayal and a relentless, deadly enemy seeking to destroy him. Facing his own worst fears, Nathan is hunter and hunted in a violent world at war.
— Bert J. Hubinger, 1813: Reprisal