Historical Fiction Quotes

Do as you would be done by ~ Jennifer Dance

Perhaps you have visited my grave and flowers left, but did you hear me cry out to you! ~ Nancy B. Brewer

Fairy tales only happen in movies.
-George Melies
from The Invention of Hugo Cabret ~ Brian Selznick

To Jana's mind everybody seemed happy to see BAbichka and resisted returning her, like a misplaced package sent to the wrong address. It was as if the recipient opened it up, knowing it should be returned, but wondering who long they could legitimately keep it before being changed with theft. ~ F.C. Malby

You may not know this, but talking about mathematics eliminates any possibility of being kissed in the first place. ~ Lisa Kleypas

She gently bit his bottom lip, his ear. Worked her way down his body until she reached the inside of his thigh, then bit hard, breaking the skin, drawing blood. "My mark," she said, looking up at him. "Now you'll go back to your wife with my mark. ~ Dominique Wilson

As the tension between the Protestants and the Church of Rome intensified, so did the desire for a third way among dissenting groups. Soon a new group emerged, though in some senses it was also an old group - one that felt it could trace its origins all the way back to the New Testament. Known collectively as the Radical Reformation, these persecuted groups often advocated a nonviolent ethic, the separation of church and state, and a desire for both personal and corporate holiness. The ideas of these radicals spread through Europe, and over the years the Amish, Mennonites and Anabaptists, and to a lesser degree the Covenanters and Quakers, emerged or were influenced by this movement. ~ David Holdsworth

They do not call him the terror of husbands and lovers for no reason ... ~ Andrea Zuvich

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 ~ Ngugi Wa Thiongo

His voice sounded like the rich taste of chocolate on your tongue. ~ Tamera Alexander

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

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

Historical fiction is not only a respectable literary form; it is a standing reminder of the fact that history is about human beings. ~ Helen Cam

You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it's like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you're thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws. ~ Hilary Mantel

I enjoy writing historical fiction because it allows me to live more lives than just this one. ~ Karen A. Chase

If Miss Elton spoke water instead of words, then there would have been a repetition of Noah's flood. ~ Kellyn Roth

People think blood red, but blood don't got no colour. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream for that son of a bitch to come, the lone baby of 1785. Not when the baby wash in crimson and squealing like it just depart heaven to come to hell, another place of red. Not when the midwife know that the mother shed too much blood, and she who don't reach fourteen birthday yet speak curse 'pon the chile and the papa, and then she drop down dead like old horse. Not when blood spurt from the skin, on spring from the axe, the cat-o'-nine, the whip, the cane and the blackjack and every day in slave life is a day that colour red. It soon come to pass when red no different from white or blue or black or nothing. Two black legs spread wide and mother mouth screaming. A black baby wiggling in blood on the floor with skin darker than midnight but the greenest eyes anybody ever done seen. I goin' call her Lilith. You can call her what they call her. ~ Marlon James

Not many have escaped Merthyr, Mam. Not many want to leave in any case. At least there is
work in this valley, people come near and far to work here, so we should be glad of that... - Lily - Black Diamonds. ~ Lynette Rees

The lines in the corners of her eyes spoke of years of wisdom, as a tree with the number of rings increasing with each passing year. She was a small frame of a woman with piercing eyes that suggested that they knew you, understood you even. ~ F.C. Malby

I was too far away to hear what was said but I saw in Val's eyes the same fear that I had once known and could well guess at Lucas' unthinking remark. ~ Julia Lee Dean

Wouldn't you like to be my lord Duke of Exeter? Come on, Dom. Say something."
"You have lost your mind."
"Say something less insulting. ~ Laura Andersen

The best way to take our minds off our own troubles is to help someone else with theirs. ~ Karen Witemeyer

People often seem surprised that I choose to write science fiction and fantasy - I think they expect a history professor to write historical fiction, or literary fiction, associating academia with the kinds of novels that academic lit critics prefer. But I feel that speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is a lot more like the pre-modern literature I spend most of my time studying than most modern literature is. Ursula Le Guin has described speculative fiction authors as "realists of a larger reality" because we imagine other ways of being, alternatives to how people live now, different worlds, and raise questions about hope and change and possibilities that different worlds contain.

....

Writing for a more distant audience, authors tended to be speculative, using exotic perspectives, fantastic creatures, imaginary lands, allegories, prophecies, stories within stories, techniques which, like science fiction and fantasy, use alternatives rather than one reality in order to ask questions, not about the way things are, but about plural ways things have been and could be. Such works have an empathy across time, expecting and welcoming an audience as alien as the other worlds that they describe. When I read Voltaire responding to Francis Bacon, responding to Petrarch, responding to Boethius, responding to Seneca, responding to Plutarch, I want to respond to them too, to pass it on. So it makes sense to me to answer in the genre people ha ~ Ada Palmer

Want to read my most favorites books? They are Wildflowers, Bridie's Daughter, and Secrets! You'll be glad you did! ~ Robert Noonan

When I was growing up I loved reading historical fiction, but too often it was about males; or, if it was about females, they were girls who were going to grow up to be famous like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, or Harriet Tubman. No one ever wrote about plain, normal, everyday girls. ~ Kathryn Lasky

She and I are as far apart as the stars in the sky and the soles of my feet." Detective Sean Ryan ~Deception on Sable Hill by Shelley Gray ~ Shelley Gray

Like the magnolia tree,
She bends with the wind,
Trials and tribulation may weather her,
Yet, after the storm her beauty blooms,
See her standing there, like steel,
With her roots forever buried,
Deep in her Southern soil. ~ Nancy B. Brewer

Nicholas met with him earlier about some lumber deal and sent him here for lunch. He's evidently new in town and was wondering where to get something good to eat. ~ Melissa Jagears

We may be finished with the past but the past is not finished with us. ~ Donald Riggio

And what does war even accomplish? How does one country win over another by simply killing its people? None of it makes any sense. ~ Susan Meissner

If you don't know what those old occupations were, how they were done, and how they interacted with the passersby, you're not prepared to write a historical novel. A historical figure doesn't pass through a blank countryside. That means you, the novelist, must learn by research what the whole place was like in those times. As much as you can, you must be like someone who has lived there, because you're going to be not just the storyteller but also the tour guide taking your readers through the past. ~ James Alexander Thom

Whore," he spat at her.

"If I am a whore for resisting you," she said through her teeth, "what would I have been for giving in?"

"Whore," he said again. ~ G. Willow Wilson

People generally forget the things they are ashamed of, but no one ever forgets an insult. ~ Lina J. Potter

I believe that historical fiction is the closest thing we have to time travel. ~ Cassandra Clare

Why were people always asking me about things in my past, the things I wanted to keep hidden? But then, why did my life have to be full of details I didn't want to share with others? ~ Sarah Holman

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

Two people, one city, different times; connected by a memoir. Can love exist in a city destined for decades of misery? ~ Ahmad Ardalan

They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction.
'Poor Grendel's had an accident,' I whisper. 'So may you all. ~ John Gardner

Jess Pepper's review of the Avalon Strings:

'In a land so very civilized and modern as ours, it is unpopular to suggest that the mystical isle of Avalon ever truly existed. But I believe I have found proof of it right here in Manhattan.

To understand my reasoning, you must recall first that enchanting tale of a mist-enshrouded isle where medieval women--descended from the gods--spawned heroic men. Most notable among these was the young King Arthur. In their most secret confessions, these mystic heroes acknowledged Avalon, and particularly the music of its maidens, as the source of their power.

Many a school boy has wept reading of Young King Arthur standing silent on the shore as the magical isle disappears from view, shrouded in mist.

The boy longs as Arthur did to leap the bank and pilot his canoe to the distant, singing atoll. To rejoin nymphs who guard in the depths of their water caves the meaning of life. To feel again the power that burns within.

But knowledge fades and memory dims, and schoolboys grow up. As the legend goes, the way became unknown to mortal man. Only woman could navigate the treacherous blanket of white that dipped and swirled at the surface of the water.

And with its fading went also the music of the fabled isle.

Harps and strings that heralded the dawn and incited robed maidens to dance evaporated into the mists of time, and silence ruled.

But I tell you, Kind R ~ Bailey Bristol

The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure. ~ Geraldine Brooks

She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d'Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

Stay with me?" His fingers wound into my hair, and his arm tightened around me. "Always. ~ Amalia Carosella

He made a glorious picture. Tall in the saddle. Valiant. Unafraid of the dangers that lurked ahead. A hero on a noble quest. A rather romantic notion for a woman who'd packed away dreams of handsome knights long ago in favor of the reality of a career in medicine. ~ Karen Witemeyer

A brief whiff of her mother had come through a cracked window that opened to a weed-infested courtyard. It was a fragrance that almost spoke to her, saying, 'Yes, it was an unjust end to the life of a good man.' A man who had accepted gratitude in the place of love, and who knew Magdalena's heart would always remain with Ales's father. ~ Victoria Dougherty

Good to see you too, Otto." -Sydney Rose ~ Monet Polny

I was a journalism major, and I would take creative writing classes as part of that, but I would also look for opportunities to write stories for some of my other classes. So for my course in Scandinavian history, I asked if I could write historical fiction instead of term papers. Sometimes they'd say yes. ~ George R R Martin

Rebel Number Four" is waiting patiently by the door. I named him "Rebel Number Four," for he is the fourth of his kind I have given the name "Rebel." To many he may be just a hound dog, but to me he is a champion and a friend to the end. ~ Nancy B. Brewer

Dead man shouldn't have no fears. Makes his passing easier. ~ Samuel Snoek-Brown

Faction" is a type of historical fiction that combines fact with fiction. ~ Martin Herman

The moment was all we truly had: a succession of moments, a triumphal march of them, to create a life beyond compare. ~ Margaret George

No, It's not fair. But I was thinking more along the lines of the Pentagon and Washington itself. Sometimes I suspect that those who are running things might grow addicted to power. Secrecy's essential in wartime, but once in place, will it ever be removed? ~ Marge Piercy

From my Facebook Page: You spend the first 50 years acquiring and the second 50 years getting rid of ~ Mary R. Woldering

You are intelligent, you are diplomatic, you are beautiful, and you are and always will be ... [he kisses her] ... MINE ... ~ Neil Jordan

You think you have a view of what's waiting for you just up the road, but then something happens, and you find out pretty quick you were looking at the wrong road. ~ Susan Meissner

I have found that those who try to shield us from the truth, regardless of the reason, end up doing the greatest harm. Truth alone sets you free, not lies and omissions. ~ Jessica Dotta

Vera had also hated lipstick, Marzipan and Lutherans - excluding her husband, but not her late mother-in-law. Most of all she hated being governed by anyone or anything. ~ Victoria Dougherty

Could any mother amongst us even contemplate such actions? I appeal to all mothers here. ~ Margaret Anne MacLeod

It is easier to start a war than to end it. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

They would never forget the war. The world wouldn't let them, and neither would history. ~ Lee Strauss

I saw us in some lost future, myself with a long beard, and her with silver streaks entwined in her auburn hair. My son would already be proud of the strength of his own son. ~ Tanja Radman

Promise me you'll let go of your anger. Don't blame God for taking me. His will is beyond our understanding, but perfect in its execution. Don't let this shake your faith. ~Nolan's mom to Nolan ~ Susan Anne Mason

Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes. ~ Sara Sheridan

Sometimes time can play tricks. One moment it idles by, an hour can seem a lifetime, such as when sitting by the river at dusk watching the bats snatching insects above the limpid waters; the breaching fish causing ringed ripples and a satisfying plop. Other times, time flashes by in an immodest fashion. So it is with the start of war. First time quivers with the last strum of a wonderful peace, the note holding in the air, mysterious and haunting, filling the listener with awe. Then, with a rising crescendo the terror starts with uncouth haste; with a boom the listener is shaken from their reverie and delivered into the servitude, of an ear-shattering cacophony. ~ M.A. Lossl

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

I followed the curious intensity behind those dark blue eyes and the moment his eyes changed. Suddenly, my world felt terribly small, like I'd experienced merely a handful of what it had to offer. ~ Abigail Wilson

How things change,' I say, 'how strange that, even when all is lost, we can still find beauty in simple things. ~ Judith Arnopp

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

Life is volatile. ~ Robert J. Pajer

Writing fiction is a respectable way of fibbing for a living - and enjoying it!
-Anne George ~ Anne George

Ready yourselves!' Mullone heard himself say, which was strange, he thought, for he knew his men were prepared.
A great cry came from beyond the walls that were punctuated by musket blasts and Mullone readied himself for the guns to leap into action. Mullone felt a tremor. The ground shook and then the first rebels poured through the gates like an oncoming tide. Mullone saw the leading man; both hands gripping a green banner, face contorted with zeal. The flag had a white cross in the centre of the green field and the initials JF below it. John Fitzstephen. Then, there were more men behind him, tens, then scores. And then time seemed to slow.
The guns erupted barely twenty feet from them.
Later on, Mullone would remember the great streaks of flame leap from the muzzles to lick the air and all of the charging rebels were shredded and torn apart in one terrible instant. Balls ricocheted on stone and great chunks were gouged out by the bullets. Blood sprayed on the walls as far back as the arched gateway, limbs were shorn off, and Mullone watched in horror as a bloodied head tumbled down the sloped street towards the barricade.
'Jesus sweet suffering Christ!' Cahill gawped at the carnage as the echo of the big guns resonated like a giant's beating heart.
Trooper O'Shea bent to one side and vomited at the sight of the twitching, bleeding and unrecognisable lumps that had once been men. A man staggered with both arms missing. Another crawled back to the ga ~ David Cook

He grieved too, Klara said, for the loss of a certain idea of himself. ~ Julie Orringer

You spill a lot of beans in historical fiction. Crime fiction is about spilling no beans at all. You spill the least beans you possibly can. So because I had already written historical fiction before I was really good at the spilling beans section, but the new skill I had to learn when I was writing Brighton Belle was difficult. I had to avoid the equivalent of shouting, this character's a murderer! Look who did it!. ~ Sara Sheridan

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

The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true. ~ Hilary Mantel

A warrior becomes experienced by being defeated; a scholar by making mistakes. Defeat and mistakes we have left in the past, he said. ~ Elaine Marolakos Edelson

But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary. ~ Diana Gabaldon

You don't know how to cuddle," she said.
"No," Tom had admitted. "I'm not sure what it's for. ~ Lisa Kleypas

History immortalises both the names of the greats and the tyrants without making a distinction between them. ~ Aziz Hamza

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

happy is the nation without a history ~ Cesare Beccaria

Writing is writing to me. I'm incapable of saying no to any writing job, so I've done everything - historical fiction, myths, fairy tales, anything that anybody expresses any interest in me writing, I'll write. It's the same reason I used to read as a child: I like going somewhere else and being someone else. ~ Geraldine McCaughrean

Choosing a husband was much like choosing a good baguette. One looked for a strong outer shell, a tender interior, and most importantly, a tractability of dough to hold whatever shape the baker deemed appropriate. Abigail needed a good baguette by the end of the weeek ~ Karen Witemeyer

You can't undo the past, but you can learn from it. ~ Karen Witemeyer

Historical fiction is actually good preparation for reading SF. Both the historical novelist and the science fiction writer are writing about worlds unlike our own. ~ Pamela Sargent

That is our Shield Ring, our last stronghold; not the barrier fells and the totter-moss between, but something in the hearts of men. ~ Rosemary Sutcliff

The giant beech next door intends to shiver off every hair of its pelt. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I often tell people who want to write historical fiction: don't read all that much about the period you're writing about; read things from the period that you're writing about. There's a tendency to stoke up on a lot of biography and a lot of history, and not to actually get back to the original sources. ~ Thomas Mallon

Life's temptations have the purpose of putting our spiritual integrity to the test. To yield to them, however, gives one a precarious and tormented satisfaction. But the worst temptations are those we give in to without getting anything in return except for the brutal discovery of our weakness. ~ Paolo Maurensig

How may times can you lose the one you love? ~ Lauren James

But the tale or narrative set in the past may have its particular time-free value; and the candid reader will not misunderstand me, will not suppose that I intend any preposterous comparison, when I observe that Homer was farther removed in time from Troy than I am from the Napoleonic wars; yet he spoke to the Greeks for 2,000 years and more. ~ Patrick O'Brian

I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know. ~ Sarah Dessen

It happened so quickly. One minute I was plucking the flower, and the next I was in his chariot immersed in darkness. I struggled to wrench myself free from his grasp and run away. I twisted as far as I could, hoping to see mother chasing after me. But ahead of me, behind me, on either side of me, everywhere I looked, all I could see was darkness. ~ Tamara Agha-Jaffar

Selene's life is a lesson to us that the trajectory of women's equality hasn't always been a forward march. In some ways the ancients were more advanced than we are today; there have been setbacks before and may be more in the future. ~ Stephanie Dray

The porcelain doll residing in her white-pillared dollhouse was a mirage. ~ Katlyn Charlesworth

What I ask," Job replied, "is that you trust Him to know better than you what is just, and to trust that He is God and His wisdom is better than yours. ~ Kathy Frias

I just killed a man! This isn't the moment to discuss our marriage."
"Nonsense. Marrying amid bloodshed is a de Clermont family tradition," Philippe said briskly. ~ Deborah Harkness

Men may fight the battle, but women wage the war. ~ Katlyn Charlesworth

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

A prince may be seen happy today and ruined tomorrow without having shown any chance in his character. For the prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when it changes ... ~ Neil Jordan

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