Northover Manor Quotes

I always saw myself as a big-nosed, big-eared kid. I've never tried to kind of capitalize on that stuff. I think a lot of people do when they can. ~ Benn Northover

People have different ideas of who I am. And I think because I'm very private, people make up the strangest ideas of who and why and what. ~ Benn Northover

It was always my intention to direct. I went to film school. And then I wanted to know how to work with actors, so I went to acting school. And then by the end of that, I caught the bug. ~ Benn Northover

The only person powerful enough to deter me...is me ~ Auketria Manor

Acting's always felt like a kind of creature that lays dormant and collects observations when I'm not working. And then when I'm actually doing it, it just rises up. But everything I do is more about curiosity and investigation than it is about performance. ~ Benn Northover

I was shocked to find that there, in front of me, were the four senses playing poker ~ Isaac Du Toit

She soon decided that she disliked the south, everything except for the humongous manor house. She did adore that. And perhaps, maybe Warren, since he came with the house. ~ Lynn Hubbard

I peered through the old, mossy, stained glass windows at the interior, and it was as I guessed, run down. Were my parents really going to make this place home? ~ Isaac Du Toit

Poppy Pink is a unicorn, but not just any unicorn. She is a member of the Pinkerton Manor family of unicorns.
She was indeed a vision as she stepped from her transport.
Poppy Pink is pink all over, but her mane and tail are the purest white and so soft and silky. Her hooves are silver and look like dancing shoes, and they match her sparkling, silver, spiralled horn.
'Oh Poppy,' gasped Oona. 'You look beautiful.'
'I know I do Oona. I suppose you don't look too bad either… for a dragon.'
Poppy Pink was a snob, and there wasn't anyone, unicorn or dragon, who was better than her. Well, she was a third generation Pinkerton Manor unicorn, and Pinkerton Manor was only the biggest Manor House in the county.
How could anyone possibly be better?
Poppy Pink looked down at her feet. They were very muddy.
'Ugh, look at my beautiful, shiny, hooves Oona,' whined Poppy Pink. 'We don't have mud at Pinkerton Manor, even when it rains.'
Poor Oona Orange-Blackspot looked downhearted. 'So sorry Poppy. I wish it hadn't rained for your visit.'
'So do I,' sniffed Poppy Pink. 'I find this weather very tiresome. It never rains enough to cause mud at Pinkerton Manor. ~ Ann Perry

It's fucking Meerkat Manor in my pants. ~ Tara Sivec

Sorrow rushed into her soul, moaning softly like the winter wind in abandoned manor houses. ~ Gustave Flaubert

Ha! for a divine and lordly manor, there is nothing like solid ground. ~ Francois Rabelais

I was not to the manor born. ~ Israel Horovitz

...how crazy things have to get before I ended up drooling all over a strait jacket with my name on it at Happyville Manor. ~ Gayla Drummond

bedroom, on her part of the soiled mattress, Dorthea stared out the window at a perfect moonlit view of Sunny Slope Manor. ~ Timothy Patrick

The whole area, manor house, Clink, all eighteen brothels and the handsome profits therefrom, belonged to and was ruled by the bishop. ~ Edward Rutherfurd

Mistress Allen was only an ordinary provincial manor lady, bent on nothing more sinister than retrieving money of which she felt defrauded, and in the process either quarreling with or using people. ~ Anya Seton

The first time I laid eyes on Langstone Manor I could not blame my husband for staying away for over fifteen years. ~ Anna Lee Huber

How do you accidentally kill a lord in his own manor?'
with a knife to the chest ... well a pair of knives actually, one can never be too careful ~ Brandon Sanderson

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes. ~ George Orwell

...Most peasants never traveled farther than twenty-five miles from the village of their birth. They had strong social ties to their communities, and could not imagine living anywhere else.
"In many places, peasant villages were located within a noble's estate, which was called a manor. Manors could be as small as one hundred acres or as large as several thousand acres and typically encompassed a mixture of cultivated and uncultivated land. Forests provided wood, nuts, and berries; pastures and meadows offered grazing for livestock; and lakes and rivers gave water and fish. But the largest acreage was devoted to agriculture, apportioned among the peasants and the noble, although the noble did no farming himself. Instead the peasants collectively worked both his land and theirs. ~ Patricia D. Netzley

Anyone who thought this would be a weak point in the manor's defenses would have a rude surprise, shortly before coming down with a serious case of death. ~ Mercedes Lackey

We can't begin to feed ourselves with a local-centric system if we lock up land in royal manor models. ~ Joel Salatin

Shame on those who remain unmoved, whose pace fails to quicken, on entering one of these old habitations, a manor-house falling to wrack and ruin or a desecrated church! ~ Petrus Borel

Geralt knew that bonnet and that feather, which were famed from the Buina to the Yaruga, known in manor houses, fortresses, inns, taverns and whorehouses. Particularly whorehouses. ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

Three days a week she helped at the Manor Nursing Home, where people proved their keenness by reciting received analyses of current events. All the Manor residents watched television day and night, informed to the eyeballs like everyone else and rushed for time, toward what end no one asked. Their cupidity and self-love were no worse than anyone else's, but their many experiences' having taught them so little irked Lou. One hated tourists, another southerners; another despised immigrants. Even dying, they still held themselves in highest regard. Lou would have to watch herself. For this way of thinking began to look like human nature
as if each person of two or three billion would spend his last vital drop to sustain his self-importance. ~ Annie Dillard

Maybe she feels like a jerk about leaving him at Pitch Manor on Christmas Eve. I know I do. The vibe here is very, Let's kill a virgin and write a great Led Zeppelin album ~ Rainbow Rowell

Alfie Dawlish. Invented all sorts of imaginary ailments for the family at the Manor so he could rob them and treat the village for nothing. It was his primitive version of the Health Service ~ John Mortimer

repeated the motions. He was bored out of his mind. A pigeon had arrived at his family's manor the day before. It brought a message stating the Queen was ~ Jenna Van Vleet

At first they pretended to laugh to scorn the idea of animals managing a farm for themselves. The whole thing would be over in a fortnight, they said. They put it about that the animals on the Manor Farm (they insisted on calling it the Manor Farm; they would not tolerate the name "Animal Farm") were perpetually fighting among themselves and were
also rapidly starving to death. When time passed and the animals had evidently not starved to death, Frederick and Pilkington changed their
tune and began to talk of the terrible wickedness that now flourished on Animal Farm. It was given out that the nimals there practised cannibalism, tortured one another with red-hot horseshoes, and had their females in
common. This was what came of rebelling against the laws of Nature, Frederick and Pilkington said. ~ George Orwell

Idris had been green and gold and russet in the autumn, when Clary had first been there. It had a stark grandeur in the winter: the mountains rose in the distance, capped white with snow, and the trees along the side of the road that led back to Alicante from the lake were stripped bare, their leafless branches making lace-like patterns against the bright sky.
Sometimes Jace would slow the horse to point out the manor houses of the richer Shadowhunter families, hidden from the road when the trees were full but revealed now. She felt his shoulders tense as they passed one that nearly melded with the forest around it: it had clearly been burned and rebuilt. Some of the stones still bore the black marks of smoke and fire. "The Blackthorn manor," he said. "Which means that around this bend in the road is …" He paused as Wayfarer summited a small hill, and reined him in so they could look down to where the road split in two. One direction led back toward Alicante - Clary could see the demon towers in the distance - while the other curled down toward a large building of mellow golden stone, surrounded by a low wall. " … the Herondale manor," Jace finished.
The wind picked up; icy, it ruffled Jace's hair. Clary had her hood up, but he was bare-headed and bare-handed, having said he hated wearing gloves when horseback riding. He liked to feel the reins in his hands. "Did you want to go and look at it?" she asked.
His breath came out in a white cloud. "I'm not sure. ~ Cassandra Clare

Oh deaf Gog, no, stop!"

Fumblefoot gave her a reproachful look. Stop what?

"I have broken into an enchanted manor house and my pony has crapped on the floor. Oh God. ~ T. Kingfisher

But no parties could live under such labels as Petitioners and Abhorrers. Instead of naming themselves they named each other. The term "Whig" had described a sour, bigoted, canting, money-grubbing Scots Presbyterian. Irish Papist bandits ravaging estates and manor-houses had been called "Tories." Neither ~ Winston S. Churchill

I have a problem with capitalism, in it's extreme sense. At the same time communism, I have a problem with that, because every man must feel like a lord in his own manor. ~ Jaz Coleman

I dreamed of a green place once," he whispered. "A manor house and a little girl with red hair, and preparations for a wedding. If there are other worlds, then maybe there is one where I was a good brother and a good son. ~ Cassandra Clare

Mr. Holm and Holm Manor bear only slight responsibility, liability, and legal obligation for the future societal changes that may result from your female children believing it is within their power and right to become whomever and whatever they desire - and in doing so, to change the course of history. ~ Mary Weber

I love everything that Frank Gehry does. I wish I could have that man build me a Wayne Manor-style mansion, like his idea of it. ~ Pharrell Williams

I'm not of the manor born; I've never felt entitled in that way. I just came to Hollywood to be an actor. All that lifestyle stuff is something to be managed. ~ John C. Reilly

It was time to start over. That was what Haven Manor was about, wasn't it? A fresh start? A life where your mistakes didn't define you? It was time she took that for herself. ~ Kristi Ann Hunter

Snapping shut his mobile, Dalgliesh reflected that murder, a unique crime for which no reparation is ever possible, imposes it own compulsions as well as it's conventions. He doubted whether Macklefield [the murder victim's Will attorney] would have interrupted his country weekend for a less sensational crime. As a young officer he, too, had been touched, if unwillingly and temporarily, by the power of murder to attract even while it appalled and repelled. He had watched how people involved as innocent bystanders, provided they were unburdened by grief or suspicion, were engrossed by homicide, drawn inexorably to the place where the crime had occurred in fascinated disbelief. The crowd and the media who served them had not yet congregated outside the wrought-iron gates of the Manor. But they would come, and he doubted whether Chandler-Powell's [owner of the Manor where the murder was committed] private security team would be able to do more than inconvenience them. ~ P.D. James

What's burning down is a re-creation of a period revival house patterned after a copy of a copy of a copy of a mock Tudor big manor house. It's a hundred generations removed from anything original, but the truth is aren't we all? ~ Chuck Palahniuk

By the way, if you're ever conversing with an actual vampire, do not refer to the House of Shadows as Twilight Manor. There's a reason vampires aren't known for their senses of humour.
If you accidentally do so, I'd say run, but it's probably already too late. ~ Jacqueline Carey

A lot of people have it - that fantasy of being lord or lady of the manor, either in the present or at some time in history. ~ Penelope Keith

Don't you own a pair of riding pants?"
Tucker shook her head, wondering how fast horses were.
Lorelei shot her sister a harsh glare. "Why does it seem as if she's never ridden a day in her life?"

Vivian crossed her arms. "Because I brought her to a manor, not a stable. ~ Emory Sharplin

Then Snowball (for it was Snowball who was best at writing) took a brush between the two knuckles of his trotter, painted out MANOR FARM from the top bar of the gate and in its place painted ANIMAL FARM. This was to be the name of the farm from now onwards. ~ George Orwell

Oh dear God, no, stop!"

Fumblefoot gave her a reproachful look. Stop what?

I have broken into an enchanted manor house and my pony has crapped on the floor. Oh God.

-Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher ~ T. Kingfisher

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true too ... she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

The manor looked smaller than Ash remembered, the stone of its facade honey-gold, not bleak and imposing. It had shrunk from the unassailable fortress that had loomed in Ash's head all these years. Now it was just a house. A big house, yes, but not the dark, menacing edifice he'd brooded over in his memory. ~ Courtney Milan

Except in Punjab and the NWFP, the central government's Kashmir policy had little support in Sindh or Balochistan and even less in East Bengal. Instead of serving the people, civil servants and their allies in the army hoisted the political leaders with their Kashmir petard to become the veritable masters of the manor through autocratic and unconstitutional means. ~ Ayesha Jalal

On nights it was hard to be in the palace, I would stand outside the manor and watch the lights of your bedroom. The black rose bushes were always in my way. But over time, I began to feel a fondness for them. Seeing a black rose meant was near you, near the one person who understood me. ~ Sara Wolf

The society which projects and undertakes the technological transformation of nature alters the base of domination by gradually replacing personal dependence (of the slave on the master, the serf on the lord of the manor, the lord on the donor of the fief, etc.) with dependence on the "objective order of things" (on economic laws, the market etc.). ~ Herbert Marcuse

In London - and forget those extra public pressures on politicians - the lovely old Sloane world of manor houses simply hasn't cut it since Big Bang in 1986, the point at which Mrs. Thatcher really started to achieve her ambition to make this country more like America - its ambition, economy, it's very tangible measures of success. ~ Peter York

On the seventh of May, Cerise Mar, Erian Mar, and Mikita Mar traveled to the aforementioned manor house and found Lagar Sheerile, Peva Sheerile, Arig Sheerile, and several men in their employ on the premises. Cerise Mar voiced a polite and a nonviolent request that they get the hell off our land, which was refused. ~ Ilona Andrews

How often I admire the taste shown in the garden which, within the house, may be indifferent. Here is an art which is today probably more perfect than at any previous time, one which does not break with the past, while it brings a sense of comely order, and a radiant beauty, to cottage and manor alike. ~ William Rothenstein

You are an astronomer as well as a mathematician?"
He turned to face her, finally, half his face cast into shadowy light from the manor beyond. "You are a horticulturalist as well as an anatomist?"
She smiled. "We are surprising, aren't we?"
His lips twitched. "We are. ~ Sarah MacLean

A canon is a guarded catalogue of that speech, music and art which houses inside us, which is irrevocably familiar to our homecomings. And this will include, if honestly arrived at and declared (even if solely to oneself), all manner of ephemera, trivial, and possibly mendacious matter ... No manor woman need justify his personal anthology, his canonic welcomes. Love does not argue its necessities. ~ George Steiner

That Hugh's presence within walking distance of Biddenden Manor might not be conducive either to his happiness or to his self-esteem he did not allow to weigh with him, for he was a man with a strong sense of propriety, and he knew that it was his duty to feel affection for all his brothers and sisters. ~ Georgette Heyer

How very like you, Puck." Ash's voice came from a great distance, and the room started to spin. "Offer them a taste of faery wine, then act surprised when they're consumed by it."
That struck me as hilarious, and I broke into hysterical giggles. And once I began, I couldn't stop."



Julie Kagawa ~ Julie Kagawa

The Mistress of the Manor (Hoyt calls her MOM) has no idea he shoots the skunks and raccoons he traps on her property. She has asked him please to release the creatures in some other vicinity, a "humane" act that only makes them somebody's else's problem. Typical: MOM sees nothing contradictory in driving twenty miles in a gas-guzzling atmosphere-choking SUV to buy organic vegetables. ~ Sarah Kernochan

And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don's wife, or an outlaw's lady?"
"I was born for you," I said simply, and held out my arms to him. ~ Diana Gabaldon

A minor fief had risen up against their
cruel and avaricious lord, with hundreds of people surrounding his Manor house, threatening to burn it to the ground. The panicked nobleman's message for help was answered by the arrival of a single Ranger. Aghast, the nobleman confronted the solitary cowled figure.
'They sent one Ranger?' he said incredulously. 'One man?'
'How many riots do you have?' the Ranger replied. ~ John Flanagan

According to the Tax Foundation, taxes now consume more than 38% of the average family's budget. That is more than is spent on food, clothing, housing, and transportation combined. Compare this to the plight of medieval serfs. They only had to give the lord of the manor one-third of their output - and they were considered slaves. So what does that make us? ~ Daniel J. Mitchell

She looked out then, through the crowd, and saw Simon with the Lightwoods, looking at her across the empty space that separated them. It was the same way that Jace had looked at her at the manor. It was the one thread that bound these two boys that she loved so much, she thought, their one commonality: They both believed in her even when she didn't believe in herself. ~ Cassandra Clare

He hadn't spoken a word since they'd left the manor except to snap out directions, telling her which way to turn at a fork in the road, or ordering her to skirt a pothole. Even then she doubted if he would have minded much if she'd fallen into the pothole, except that it would have slowed them down. ~ Cassandra Clare

Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for some one. She was getting on. But ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

The room was utterly silent. Now there is the silence you encounter on entering a grand manor. And there is the silence that comes of too few people in too big a space. But this was a different quality of silence altogether. A ponderous, oppressive silence. A silence reminiscent, though it took me a while to put my finger on it, of the silence that hangs around a terminal patient. A silence pregnant with the presentiment of death. The air faintly musty and ominous. ~ Haruki Murakami

The next day was, for Emma, a dismal one. Everything seemed enveloped in a black atmosphere that hovered indistinctly over the exterior of things, and sorrow rushed into her soul, moaning softly like the winter wind in abandoned manor houses. It was the sort of reverie you sink into over something that will never return again, the lassitude that overcomes you with each thing that is finished, the pain you suffer when any habitual motion is stopped, when a prolonged vibration abruptly ceases. ~ Gustave Flaubert

I just saw riches. But Vishera saw love, saw tenderness, saw all the care she had poured into making this manor her home. And in her mind, I suppose that's all it was: a home. Her home. One she would do anything to protect.

And when put that way, was I right to stop her?

I don't know. You want philosophical questions, go ask a priest.

I was here to stab a bitch. ~ Sam Sykes

Let the smoky Käll sustain himself on Mars, and Yuko lay rue on Beethoven's grave. Let the lord of the manor of Rochdale clap his coffin into a canoe and disport himself on the waters. Let Zsa-Zsa sleep on a pillow of haddock in Maria's cello case. Let Mrs Wessen live to see her thousandth moon. Let Ysobel unknit her forehead. Let not poor Virginie weep. Let all and no things come to pass, for how will I pass these days? ~ Vikram Seth

She'll never ride," Eleanor said. She can't even bump the saddle yet."
"Perhaps loony people can't ride," Ruth suggested.
"Ruth," Bee said, with vigour. "The pupils at the Manor are not lunatic. They are not even mentally deficient. They are just 'difficult.'"
"Ill-adjusted is the technical description," Simon said.
"Well, they behave like lunatics. If you behave like a lunatic how is anyone to tell that you're not one? ~ Josephine Tey

Since I neither want not can influence the events of the world, my mission is to preserve the internal integrity and equilibrium of my mind; that will be in which the manor in which I recover the purity of the original act; I shall be my own citadel, and to it I shall retire to protect myself against a hostile and corrupt world. I shall be my own citadel and, within it, my own and only citizen. ~ Carlos Fuentes

Myron shook his head. "This is too weird," he said. "I saw Carl heading out," Esperanza said. "What did he want?" "He came by with a maid from the Court Manor. Guess who Jack Coldren was linking up with for a little afternoon delight?" "Tonya Harding?" "Close. Norm Zuckerman." Esperanza tilted her head back and forth, as though sizing up an abstract work at the Met. "I'm not surprised. About Norm anyway. Think about it. Never married. No family. In public, he always surrounds himself with young, beautiful women. ~ Harlan Coben

There are families whose greatness lies in their past, and in their legacies, Mrs. Schuyler answered. That is a quality much to be admired, for tradition is what binds us as a society. But there are some families, like some nations, whose greatness is a future development, and that quality, though harder to discern than the prestige of manor houses and coats of arms and titles of rank and office, is no less valuable, if, indeed, not more so. ~ Melissa De La Cruz

He knew many things now that he had not known only a short time earlier. He knew that despite all the good things happening now, John would still miss his parents, and Violet and her family would still miss her brother, and Nicholas would miss having John at the Manor, and when Viloet went away to art school, he would miss her, too.
'Nothing's easy,' Nicholas thought, sneaking glances at his friends, who were serving themselves more pie. 'But some things help. ~ Trenton Lee Stewart

The prospect of a world that contains neither humans nor Z's is not so terrifying. Nature will take its world back. Animals will frolic and fight. There will be no lord of the manor, which is not such a bad thing, because it seems to me that people have done a pretty poor job of guiding the biosphere for the last few thousand years. ~ John Green

Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuries of births and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of fox hunters. Strange that now in its old age this dark business should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls! And yet those strange, peaked roofs and quaint, overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and terrible intrigue. As I looked at the deep-set windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured, water-lapped front, I felt that no more fitting scene could be set for such a tragedy. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

She scarcely knew what to think except that she was in the presence of a woman who was as close to legendary as any being could get.What stories were told of her! That she had been sequestered in her own manor to prevent men from fighting over her, that she possessed strange powers, that the Wolf had kidnapped her for vengeance but married her for love, that her own brother, mistaking what had happened, had returned her to England by stealth and that Norse and Saxon had come perilously close to war over her. ~ Josie Litton

Watch it, minx," he warned with a lift of his brow. "If you intend to taunt me for every foolish statement I've made in my life, you'll force me to play Rockton and lock you up in my dark, forbidding manor while I have my wicked way with you."
That sounds perfectly awful,"she said gazing at the man she loved. "How soon can we start? ~ Sabrina Jeffries

The dead die hard, trespassers on the beyond, they must take the place as they find it, the shafts and manholes back into the muck, till such time as the lord of the manor incurs through his long acquiescence a duty of care in respect of them. They are free among the dead by all means, then their troubles are over, their natural troubles. But the debt of nature, that scandalous post-obit on one's own estate, can no more be discharged by kicking the bucket than descent can be made into the same stream twice. This is a true saying. ~ Samuel Beckett

Taking part in your own creation is as simple as changing your mind. The way you think literally creates your everyday reality. Obsessive and negative thinking fosters a negative or even hostile lifestyle. Positive and constructive thoughts create happiness and contentment in the same manor. The fortunate thing for us is that the frequency wave of a positive thought far exceeds that of a negative one, so even if we suffer through a bout of depression or anger, a few positive thoughts can easily reverse the damage we have created in ourselves ~ Gary Hopkins

They're a slow-moving lot, reporters. Slothlike. Weighed down by all that righteous indignation about the freedom of the press and the public's right to know, not to mention the liquid lunches they see as their constant due. Go out now and you're playing right into their grasping, ink-stained hands." He cocked an ear to the door. "I'm doing my best to protect your reputation here. It wouldn't do to have a serving wench caught in a compromising position with the lord of the manor."
"You don't have the cleavage to make a good serving wench, Eli. ~ Kate Meader

We welcome our beloved dead." Determined, I lifted my eyelids and searched the room. The feather in Mrs. Thompson's white curls bounced in a draft. Mr. Hunt's whiskers quivered. Lord Marshall sat entirely too near to Mother; his knee must surely be pressed against hers. The candle flickered. Someone cleared their throat. The poodle whined, bored.
No spirits.
They'd been hounding me all week; the least they could do was show themselves when they were needed. It was just rude otherwise. "Spirits," I snapped. "I said you are welcome here." Colin coughed once. "As long as you mean us no ill," I amended, remembering the surge of the angry spirit at the Whitestone Manor pond. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

Empty - it was utterly empty here. Like a tomb. "Tam?" I called. I bounded up the front steps and into the house. I rushed inside, swearing as I slid on a piece of broken porcelain - the remnants of a vase. Slowly, I turned in the front hall. It looked as if an army had marched through. Tapestries hung in shreds, the marble banister was fractured, and the chandeliers lay broken on the ground, reduced to mounds of shattered crystal. "Tamlin?" I shouted. Nothing. The windows had all been blown out. "Lucien?" No one answered. "Tam?" My voice echoed through the house, mocking me. Alone in the wreckage of the manor, I sank to my knees. He was gone. ~ Sarah J. Maas

He's terrified. Terrified of seeing you in his enemies' hands. And they know it, too - they know all they have to do to own him would be to get ahold of you." "You think I don't know that? But does he honestly expect me to spend the rest of my life in that manor, overseeing servants and wearing pretty clothes?" Lucien watched the ever-young forest. "Isn't that what all human women wish for? A handsome faerie lord to wed and shower them with riches for the rest of their lives?" I gripped the reins of my horse hard enough that she tossed her head. "Good to know you're still a prick, Lucien. ~ Sarah J. Maas

That's a sweet piece," said Jean, briefly forgetting to be aggravated. "You didn't snatch that off a street."
"No," said Locke, before taking another deep draught of the warm water in the decanter. "I got it from the neck of the governor's mistress."
"You can't be serious."
"In the governor's manor."
"Of all the -"
"In the governor's bed."
"Damned lunatic!"
"With the governor sleeping next to her."
The night quiet was broken by the high, distant trill of a whistle, the traditional swarming noise of city watches everywhere. Several other whistles joined in a few moments later.
"It is possible," said Locke with a sheepish grin, "that I have been slightly too bold. ~ Scott Lynch

Shea! The call was loud, a flood of fear and confusion, an impression of strangling, of darkness and pain.
I'm here, Jacques.
Come back to me. I need you.
She smiled at the demand in his voice; her heart somersaulted at the raw truth in his voice. He never tried to hide anything from her, not even his elemental fear of her leaving him to face the darkness alone. Spoiled brat. She sent it tenderly. There's no need to sound like the lord of the manor. I'll be right in.
Just come to me. He was more relaxed now, beating back his fear of isolation. I do not want to wake alone. ~ Christine Feehan

The remainder of my estate, including twenty-two percent of Barrington Shipping, as well as the Manor House - " Mr. Siddons couldn't resist a glance in the direction of Lady Virginia Fenwick, who was sitting on the edge of her seat - "is to be left to my beloved ... daughters Emma and Grace, to dispose of as they see fit, with the exception of my Siamese cat, Cleopatra, who I leave to Lady Virginia Fenwick, because they have so much in common. They are both beautiful, well-groomed, vain, cunning, manipulative predators, who assume that everyone else was put on earth to serve them, including my besotted son, who I can only pray will break from the spell she has cast on him before it is too late. ~ Jeffrey Archer

Shocked, Raven flung back her head to listen more intently. "The wolves are talking to you! How do I know that, Mikhail? How could I possibly know such a thing?"
He ruffled her hair lightly, affectionately. "You hang out with the wrong crowd."
He was rewarded with a bubble of laughter. It tugged at his heart, left him open and vulnerable.
"What is this?" she teased. "Lord of the manor picks up seventies slang?"
He grinned at her boyishly, mischievously. "Maybe I am the one hanging out with the wrong crowd."
"And maybe there's hope for you yet." She kissed his throat, his chin, the stubborn line of his blue-shadowed jaw. ~ Christine Feehan

Well, sir, do you mean to remain there, commending my father's taste in wine, or do you mean to accompany me to Ashtead?"
"Set off for Ashtead at this hour, when I have been traveling for two days?" said Sir Horace. "Now, do, my boy, have a little common sense! Why should I?"
"I imagine that your parental feeling, sir, must provide you with the answer! If it does not, so be it! I am leaving immediately!"
"What do you mean to do when you reach Lacy Manor?" asked Sir Horace, regarding him in some amusement.
"Wring Sophy's neck!" said Mr. Rivenhall savagely.
"Well, you don't need my help for that, my dear boy!" said Sir Horace, settling himself more comfortably in his chair. ~ Georgette Heyer

As they walked down the short tunnel that led to the front gate of Noavek manor, Eijeh had whispered, "I'm so scared."
Their dad's death and their kidnapping had cracked him open like an egg. He was even oozing, his eyes full of tears. The opposite had happened to Akos.
No one cracked Akos.
"I promised Dad I'd get you out of here," he'd said to Eijeh. "So that's what I'm going to do, understand? You'll make it out. That's a promise to you, this time."
He'd put his arm over his older brother's shoulders, pulled him tight to his side. They walked in together.
Now they were out, but they hadn't walked out together. Akos had had to drag him. ~ Veronica Roth

Moriarty smiled his adder's smile.
And I relaxed. I knew. My destiny and his wound together. It was a sensation I'd never got before upon meeting a man. When I'd had it from women, the upshot ranged from disappointment to attempted murder. Understand me, Professor James Moriarty was a hateful man, the most hateful, hateable, creature I have ever known, not excluding Sir Augustus and Kali's Kitten and the Abominable Bloody Snow-Bastard and the Reverend Henry James Prince. He was something man-shaped that had crawled out from under a rock and moved into the manor house. But, at that moment, I was his, and I remain his forever. If I am remembered, it will be because I knew him. From that day on, he was my father, my commanding officer, my heathen idol, my fortune and terror and rapture. ~ Kim Newman

Phoebe was relieved to discover she would be accompanied by Westcliff's oldest son, Lord Foxhall, whom she had known her entire life. He was a big, boldly handsome man in his twenties, an avid sportsman like his father. As the earl's heir, he had been accorded a viscountcy, but he and Phoebe were far too familiar to stand on ceremony.
"Fox," she exclaimed, a wide smile crossing her face.
"Cousin Phoebe." He leaned down to kiss her cheek, his dark eyes snapping with lively humor. "It seems I'm your escort. Bad luck for you."
"To me it's good luck- how could it be otherwise?"
"With all the eligible men present, you should be with one who doesn't remember you as a little girl in pigtails, sliding down one of the banisters at Stony Cross Manor. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The clatter of pans stopped when I walked into the kitchens. A smaller selection of our staff worked on the sojourn ship than in Noavek manor, but I recognized some of the faces. And the gifts, too--one of the scrubbers was making the pots float, suds dripping on the backs of his hands, and one of the choppers was doing the task with her eyes closed, the knife strokes clean and even.
Otega had her head in the coldbox. When silence fell, she straightened, and wiped her hands off on her apron.
"Ah, Cyra," she said. "No one makes a room quiet like you."
The other staff stared openly at her for her familiarity, but I only laughed a little. Even when I hadn't seen her in a while--I had surpassed her capacity to teach me last season; now we saw each other only rarely, in passing--she fell back into our old rhythms without trouble.
"It's a unique talent," I replied. ~ Veronica Roth

My lady?" He peered briefly around to see that all seemed
in order, and confusion immediately covered his face.
"Take a dozen men and ride out in search of my husband,"
Emma commanded at once. The steward goggled at her.
"But, my lady - "
"Now, Sebert. Or all will be lost."
Sebert nodded and started to withdraw, then paused and
turned back, his gaze moving helplessly to the two men by
the fireplace, before flying back to Emma herself. "But my
lady, yer husband is dead," he pointed out miserably.
Emma rolled her eyes at that. "Sebert, why can you not be
like other stewards and listen at doors?"
"I ... " Sebert drew himself up indignantly, but Emma
continued.
"Had you done so, you would be aware that I am to marry
Lord Amaury de Aneford. Immediately. Before Lord Fulk's
cousin and aunt can get here and Bertrand can lay claim to
the manor and myself. ~ Lynsay Sands

In my late thirties the dream of disappointment and exhaustion had been the dream of the exploding head: the dream of a noise in my head so loud and long that I felt with the brain that survived that the brain could not survive; that this was death. Now, in my early fifties, after my illness, after I had left the manor cottage and put an end to that section of my life, I began to be awakened by thoughts of death, the end of things; and sometimes not even by thoughts so specific, not even by fear rational or fantastic, but by a great melancholy. This melancholy penetrated my mind while I slept; and then, when I awakened in response to its prompting, I was so poisoned by it, made so much not a doer (as men must be, every day of their lives), that it took the best part of the day to shake it off. And that wasted or dark day added to the gloom preparing for the night. ~ V.S. Naipaul

Where are you sleeping?"
A wicked black brow rose. "Why? Are you inviting me into your bed?"
The words stung with their rudeness. Penelope stiffened as though she had received a physical blow. She waited a beat, sure he would apologize.
Silence.
"You've changed."
"Perhaps you should remember that the next time you decide to go on a midnight adventure."
He was nothing like the Michael she had once known.
She spun on her heel, heading into the blackness, toward the place where Needham Manor stood. She'd gone only a few feet before she turned back to face him. He had not moved.
"I really was happy to see you." She turned and headed away, back to her home, the cold seeping deep into her bones before she turned back, unable to resist a final barb. Something to hurt him as he'd hurt her. "And Michael?"
She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew undeniably that he was watching her, listening.
"You're on my land. ~ Sarah MacLean

What brings you to the manor, Kuzar?" I asked Jorek, before Vas could comment. "Surely it's not visiting Vas. I can't imagine anyone would do that for pleasure."
Jorek looked from Vas glaring at me, to me smiling back, to Akos staring determinedly at his hands, which gripped the edge of the counter. I hadn't noticed, at first, how tense Akos had become the moment Vas appeared. I could see the muscles in his shoulders bunching where his shirt stretched tight across them.
"My father is meeting with the sovereign," Jorek said. "And he thought Vas could talk some sense into me in the meantime."
I laughed. "Did he?"
"Cyra has many qualities that are useful to the sovereign, but 'sense' is not one of them; I would not take her opinion of me too seriously," Vas said.
"While I do love our little chats, Vas," I said, "why don't you just tell me what you want?"
"What are you brewing? A painkiller?" Vas smirked. "I thought groping Kereseth was your painkiller. ~ Veronica Roth

For years, walking round London, I had been aware of the actual land, lying concealed but not entirely changed or destroyed, beneath the surface of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century city. It has been said that 'God made the country and man made the town', but that is not true: the town is simply disguised countryside. Main roads, some older than history itself, still bend to avoid long-dried marshes, or veer off at an angle where the wall of a manor house once stood. Hills and valleys still remain; rivers, even though entombed in sewer pipes, still cause trouble in the foundations of neighbouring buildings and become a local focus for winter mists. Garden walls follow the line of hedgerows; the very street-patterns have been determined by the holdings of individual farmers and landlords, parcels of land some of which can be traced back to the Norman Conquest. The situation of specific buildings - pubs, churches, institutions - often dates from long distant decisions and actions on the part of men whose names have vanished from any record. ~ Gillian Tindall

His hands have begun to tremble, and he stuffs them into his pockets. They have put him in a thick gray coat, but he wears no scarf, and the skin of his neck and chest are exposed at the open collar. The healer in Arsinoe resists the urge to wrap him in a cloak. He is still weak and should be in front of a cozy fire with a hot bowl of soup.

"How is it that I have come to be here?" he asks. "I gather that I was stolen from the capital."

Emilia shoves him again. "You are here to give information, not get it."

"Emilia." Jules shakes her head, then returns her attention to Pietyr. "You were stolen from you sickbed in Greavesdrake Manor. From what we have heard, you had been there for a long time."

"You don't remember anything?" asks Arsinoe.

"Have you ever been unconscious, Queen Arsinoe?"

"Yes."

"Then you should know that is a stupid question."

She frowns. In her mind, she takes away his bowl of soup. ~ Kendare Blake

He touched the sword he had taken from the ambush. "Aside from this and the trio of juggling stones, I've nothing but the clothes on my back."
Well then, tomorrow we'll go-"
"No. Prince Ryne told me to make sure you stay in the manor."
"It's just into town to buy you a few things. Surely there won't be any danger at the market." I sensed a softening. "And we'll take along Saul or Odd."
No. We'll send one of the caregivers with a shopping list," Flea said.
"Hey, that's..."
He waited.
I huffed. "A good idea. But don't be so smug. You're not going to win every argument."
"Oh, yes, I am."
"Oh, no, you're not."
Flea straightened to his full height. When did he get so tall? He rested his hands on his hips. "I am. Prince Ryne trusted me with the task of keeping you safe. And I'm not going to disappoint him."
I crossed my arms. "You sound like Kerrick."
"Thank you."
Uh-huh. You do know I disobeyed almost all of his orders. Right?" I suppressed a grin.
"I do. But I'm smarter than Kerrick."
"You are?"
Oh, yes. I know the magic word."
"And what would that be?"
"Please. ~ Maria V. Snyder