Lauren Willig Quotes

That is fairly tame, I must say. If one is to have a blood sacrifice, I would hope there would at least be a bit more drama about it. Otherwise, it strikes me as a waste of a perfectly good human.

The French just said he was a damned nuisance. Or they would have had they the good fortune to speak English. Instead being French they were forced to say it in their own language.

This was what the poets couldn't put in their poetry, she thought dumbly, the rush of desire so fierce and pure it made one shake, all on the force of a word.

There's nothing like competing for your boyfriend's attention with an emotionally needy sibling to make you feel like the worst sort of evil psycho-bitch.

The woman in purple subjected Jack to a critical inspection. "You must be Jack. Jane succeeded in part of her mission, at least." And then: "You don't look at all as I expected."
"Fewer horns?" said Jack tersely.

Hard to believe that so nearby, just across the Channel, such atrocities could still occur in their supposedly civilized world, that one could wake up one morning and find oneself bereft of brothers, parents, friends, all with the slice of an ax.

People who would never sneer at sci-fi and murder mysteries have no trouble damning the whole romance genre without reading one.

Mr. Alsworthy!" exclaimed Letty's mother. "How can you laugh at such a matter! Although, I must say, I would have thought if a pirate were to kidnap anyone, he would kidnap Mary. She looks quite as I did in my youth, and I'm sure a pirate would have wanted to kidnap me."
"Don't taunt me with lost opportunities, my dear.

There is, I have heard, a little thing called sunrise, in which the sun reverses the process we all viewed the night before. You might assume such a thing as mythical as those beasts that guard the corners of the earth, but I have it on the finest authority, and have, indeed, from time to time, regarded it with my own eyes.

I don't believe anything's really inevitable until it happens. We just call it inevitable to make ourselves feel better about it, to excuse ourselves for not having done anything.

There was nothing the least bit radical about her. In fact, she was the most conventional creature alive. She believed in true love, and loyalty to one's monarch, and death before dishonor. It was just that, sometimes, things didn't quite turn out as one would have wished. In those cases, there was nothing to do but carry on. And on and on and on.

It's the exile's dilemma. The home they yearn for is never the home to which they return. If they return.

Quite definitely a Bingley

It hurt to kill a dream, like tearing petals off a rose in full bloom.

When Richard created the Purple Gentian, the talent for ancient languages that had stunned his schoolmasters at Eton had come to his aid once again. While Sir Percy had pretended to be a fop, Richard bored the French into complacency with long lectures about antiquity. When Frenchmen demanded to know what he was doing in France, and Englishmen reproached him for fraternising with the enemy, Richard opened his eyes wide and proclaimed, 'But a scholar is a citizen of the world!' Then he quoted Greek at them. They usually didn't ask again. Even Gaston Delaroche, the Assistant Minister of Police, who had sworn in blood to be avenged on the Purple Gentian and had the tenacity of…well, of Richard's mother, had stopped snooping around Richard after being subjected to two particularly knotty passages from the Odyssey.

LIPID (Last Idiot Person I Dated) syndrome: a largely undiagnosed but pervasive disease that afflicts single women.

They were a strange and mercantile people, these Americans. One never knew what they might come up with next.

My own inclination is to skew towards humor. They say that some people view life as a comedy, others as a tragedy. Me? Comedy all the way.

Tell them I have the headache
no, the plague! I need something nice and contagious.

Things turn up in strange places all the time. For example library books, which possess a disconcerting ability to move from place to place, seemingly of their own volition.

But that initial, comet-blazing-across-the-sky, Big Idea is only the beginning. Each book is composed of a mosaic of thousands of little ideas, ideas that invariably come to me at two in the morning when my alarm is set for seven.

There's a horrible stereotype of both the romance writer and the romance reader as somehow undereducated and unprofessional, when in fact there are a number of incredibly well-educated professional women who have chosen to leave their other careers and go into writing romance.

I know historians aren't supposed to fall in love with their own theories, but I was head over heels about the notion of an entire band of female French agents, like a nineteenth-century Charlie's Angels. Only better. It made the Pink Carnation's organization look positively humdrum.

I never sat down and said, 'I'm going to write historical fiction with strong romantic elements.' It was just the way the stories went.

Every young girl wants to be a princess. Then, when you find a real-life one, it's very easy to imagine yourself in that role.

Most of the time, there is no truth, only various levels of interpretation. Fact is a construct we provide to the public.

I hadn't realized quite how intense the first few years of grad school would be. When you're being assigned 40 books a week ... there's not much room for novels.

For a long moment, he held her gaze without speaking, simply letting the impact of words sink in, before adding rapidly, as though he wished to get it over with as quickly as possible, "I won't deny that you're beautiful. No mirror could tell you otherwise. But there are beautiful women for the buying in any brothel in London. Oh yes, and the ballrooms, too, if one has the proper price. It wasn't your appearance that caught me. It was the way you put me down in the gallery at Sibley Court." Vaughn's lips curved in a reminiscent smile. "And the way you tried to bargain with me after."

"Successfully bargained," Mary corrected.

"That," replied Lord Vaughn, "is exactly what I mean. Has anyone ever told you that you haggle divinely? That the simple beauty of your self-interest is enough to bring a man to his knees?"

Mary couldn't in honesty say that anyone had.

Vaughn's eyes were as hard and bright as silver coins. "Those are the reasons I want you. I want you for your cunning mind and your hard heart, for your indomitable spirit and your scheming soul, for they're more honest by far than any of the so-called virtues."

"The truest poetry is the most feigning?" Mary quoted back his own words to him.

"And the most feigning is the most true.

Inside, the festivities would continue, probably well into the night, with flirtation and merriment and gratuitous use of mistletoe. It was an inexpressibly wearying thought.

Love doesn't attack; it infiltrates.

The use of charm as a tool made her hackles rise. She respected a more direct approach. A battering ram approach. At least one knew where one stood with the battering ram, none of this butter-wouldn't-melt nonsense that could mean yes, no, or maybe.

Why was it that cheering expressions were invariably so infuriating?

Its nice to know that your common sense stands between me and the grave.

They were close enough that he could feel the hurried beat of her heart. He could feel Charlotte's indecision in every word she didn't say and every move she didn't make. She was tense with uncertainty, quivering with irresolution. She might not be leaning into him, but she wasn't pulling away, either.

For I shall bring you crimson leaves
And rippling wheat in golden sheaves;
A cache of berries, red and sweet,
And dappled deer on silent feet.
- Emma Delagardie and Augustus Whittlesby, Americanus: A Masque in Three Parts

His mother made a noise that in anyone of lower rank than a countess would have been given the unmannerly name of snort. As a cowed member of the ton had once commented, 'Nobody harrumphs quite like the Marchioness of Uppington.

Of course, they don't like him! Liking is for ninny-hammers. Real men elicit rancor." Pausing for a moment of deep consideration, she added, "Loathing, even. But never liking."
"Hatred, perhaps?" suggested Mary's brother-in-law, hiding his amused smile behind a tone of excessive gravity.
Mrs. Fustian was not impressed. "Certainly not. Any common laborer can hate. True connoisseurs prefer more subtle shades of aversion.

Good Gad! It looks like the last act of Hamlet in here.
Turnip banged his head against his clenched fists, making inarticulate moaning noises.
Pinchingdale gave him an odd look. 'I had no idea you felt so strongly about the play, Fitzhugh.

One of our fundamental human needs is finding our partner that we hope we will stay with for the rest of our lives. You often find the same search in other genres. The mystery novel has a romance subplot. Literary novels often focus on that relationship but do not often end well.

It wasn't the big decisions that set the course of one's life; it was the slow accretion of all the little ones.

Like everyone else, I grew up loving the Anne books, but L.M. Montgomery is so much more. Like Jane Austen, she has an eye for the absurd and a gift for the 'mot juste.'

[He] had insisted that inanimate objects couldn't have malignant motivations, but Emma had extensive proof to the contrary.

It was very hard to rant while accepting a cup of tea.

Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history's illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities.

Ever since reading Jean Plaidy's 'Queen in Waiting,' I've felt deep admiration for Caroline of Ansbach.

'Purple Plumeria' I dithered over for months and then wrote the whole thing between the beginning of July and end of August. The dithering and procrastination time was three times the writing times.

All this rapture," managed Letty, wriggling out of her mother's grasp, "is decidedly premature.

I'm not sure intentions make much difference in the end. I hear the road to hell is paved with them. She meant it frivolously, but Olivia answered seriously, "Yes, but one does have to live with one's self." "Not necessarily ... There are any number of ways to avoid living with one's self. Gin, for example." "Yes, but you're still there at the base of it aren't you. Only with a terrible head in the morning.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, a little too heartily, "So this is the library." There certainly couldn't be any doubt on that score; never had a room so resembled popular preconception. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood, although the finish had worn off the edges in spots, where books had scraped against the wood in passing one too many times. A whimsical iron staircase curved to the balcony, the steps narrowing into pie-shaped wedges that promised a broken neck to the unwary. I tilted my head back, dizzied by the sheer number of books, row upon row, more than the most devoted bibliophile could hope to consume in a lifetime of reading.

In one corner, a pile of crumbling paperbacks - James Bond, I noticed, squinting sideways, in splashy seventies covers - struck a slightly incongruous note. I spotted a moldering pile of Country Life cheek by jowl with a complete set of Trevelyan's History of England in the original Victorian bindings. The air was rich with the smell of decaying paper and old leather bindings. Downstairs, where I stood with Colin, the shelves made way for four tall windows, two to the east and two to the north, all hung with rich red draperies checked with blue, in the obverse of the red-flecked blue carpet. On the west wall, the bookshelves surrendered pride of place to a massive fireplace, topped with a carved hood to make Ivanhoe proud, and large enough to roast a serf. In short, the library was a Gothic fantasy.

This was Hist and Lit, after all. If you couldn't work the term "liminal" into your tutorial, you were doing it wrong.

She responded to Letty's well-meaning suggestions with the unblinking disdain perfected by cats in their dealings with their humans.

Only the silver head of his cane blazed with reflected fire, held aloft above the grave like a medieval necromancer summoning spirits from the vasty deep.

He admired her for throwing off her aristocratic shackles
his terms, that
and making her own way in the world.
He didn't realize that the truth was so much more complex, so much less impressive. She had less thrown than been thrown.

That was the problem with snide comments; they invariably lost all their punch on repetition. Besides, when facing impending death, what did the odd witticism matter?

About, not to. Prepositions had been invented for a reason.

For the first time, Mary understood what drove animals to bite the hand that fed them - sheer irritation at being patronized.

Even Sally wound't want to cross fans with the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale. The woman had a tongue of steel and drank the blood of young virgins for breakfast.

Amazing what the application of a knitting needle could do for one's manners.

Sometimes Richard had the sinking suspicion that he had a far better chance of preventing Bonaparte from conquering Europe than he had of thwarting his mother's plans to see him married off within the next Season.

There is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather; / To cheer one on the tedious way, / To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one totters down, / To strengthen whilst one stands.'" Bea was much struck by this. "How lovely,

No sin is original, no matter what the bright young things may hope. We're all merely playing to a theme.

Think before you speak. Take a deep breath, people suggested. Count to ten. Count sheep. Oh, wait, that was for sleeping. Even in her own head, her tongue ran ahead of her brain. It propelled her into all sorts of absurd situations. Elopements. Scandals. This.

Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England

If I stay in academia, I might end up going someplace random.

I think sex is a very minor part of most romance novels.

Did I invent anything? I don't think so, not really. But if I've helped make history fun ... then my work here is done.

I've had mainstream readers complain that the book is really a romance, and romance readers complain that the book isn't a romance - with the same book! It really depends on the individual reader's expectations going into the story, and that's very hard to predict person to person.

When you think about it, everything has been said before, in one way or another. It's only our experience of it that makes it new.

With the complete lack of shame of the extremely deaf and the complete lack of grammar of the extremely inbred.

I didn't know there could be an almost kiss. It seems like the sort of thing that either happens or it doesn't.
Oh no ... There's an entire universe of near misses out there, kisses that almost were, but weren't.

Such kindness wasn't a gift but a goad, scraping against one's skin like a yoke of thorns. She would have preferred him stiff, defensive, even offensive.

If a man took a lover it would be accounted commonplace. Why shouldn't you? Your virtue lies in your mind, not in what lies between your legs.

I tend to navigate by indirection, meaning that most of the major things in my life have happened when I've been thinking about something else.

Imagination was all very well in the daylight, but it was an uncomfortable thing late at night.

Old books exert a strange fascination for me
their smell, their feel, their history; wondering who might have owned them, how they lived, what they felt.

I'm not sure that teaching a Core course is necessarily the best introduction to teaching.

Turning to Turnip, Miss Dempsey said, 'Do you think?'. 'As little as I can,' Turnip replied honestly.

It was the usual sort of academic battle: footnotes at ten paces, bolstered by snide articles in academic journals and lots of sniping about methodology, a thrust and parry of source and countersource. My sources had to be better.

I'm an eighteenth-century girl at heart. I wouldn't mind being set down in London in 1715, in the midst of all the drama of the Hanoverian succession.

Her eyes were as hard and bright as stars. Not the pretty sort that poets mooned about, but the kind that made men's destinies. The Orchid Affair

Her mother would be appalled, but she wouldn't say anything. She would just telegraph her distress with tightened lips and raised brows. She was good at that. Clemmie's mother's brows were better than sign language, complicated concepts conveyed with the minimum of movement.

I'm not your gilded prince with the gilded chairs, Letty," Geoff said simply. "I couldn't be if I tried."
"I wouldn't want you to be." Letty's voice felt rusty.
"I'm not particularly bold or dashing or heroic. I'm happier at my desk than in a black cloak. And I've never entirely mastered all the steps of the quadrille." He looked soberly down at her. "But what I am is yours, if you'll still have me.

As a friend once pointed out, the crotchety dowagers do tend to get all the best lines. That may be why I have so many of them in my books.