The Romanovs Quotes

Maria cries unashamedly on my shoulder while I whisper and pet her cheek, but Anastasia grips my other hand and stares fiercely back at our Alexander Palace with her wet blue eyes until it is no more than a lemon-colored speck against the sunrise. ~ Sarah Miller

The Romanovs are overtaken by the Indian Maharajahs as American heiresses pick over the carcasses of fallen Empire. ~ Suzy Menkes

The Romanovs inhabit a world of family rivalry, imperial ambition, lurid glamour, sexual excess and depraved sadism; this is a world where obscure strangers suddenly claim to be dead monarchs reborn, brides are poisoned, fathers torture their sons to death, sons kill fathers, wives murder husbands, a holy man, poisoned and shot, arises, apparently, from the dead, barbers and peasants ascend to supremacy, giants and freaks are collected, dwarfs are tossed, beheaded heads kissed, tongues torn out, flesh knouted off bodies, rectums impaled, children slaughtered; here are fashion-mad nymphomaniacal empresses, lesbian ménage à trois, and an emperor who wrote the most erotic correspondence ever written by a head of state. Yet this is also the empire built by flinty conquistadors and brilliant statesmen that conquered Siberia and Ukraine, took Berlin and Paris, and produced Pushkin, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky; a civilization of towering culture and exquisite beauty. ~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

Its heart was the alliance between the Romanovs and the nobility who needed royal support to control their estates. Serfdom was the foundation of this partnership. The ideal of autocracy was in practice a deal whereby the Romanovs enjoyed absolute power and delivered imperial glory while the nobility ruled their estates unchallenged. The ~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

We know now that most birth deformities result from the consanguinity of the parents."
"From the what?" asked Desdemona.
"From families intermarrying."
Desdemona went white.
"Causes all kinds of problems. Imbecility. Hemophilia. Look at the Romanovs. Look at any royal family. Mutants, all of them. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

The Russian empire, it is estimated, grew by fifty-five square miles (142 square kilometres) per day after the Romanovs came to the throne in 1613, or 20,000 square miles a year. By the late nineteenth century, they ruled one sixth of the earth's surface - and they were still expanding. Empire-building was in a Romanov's blood. ~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

I don't mind whether a person is rich or poor. Once my friend, always my friend.
--Tsarina Alexandra of Russia (1872-1918) ~ Julia P. Gelardi

For very long periods I am really patient, and then out breaks my bad temper. It is not so difficult to bear great trials, but these little buzzing mosquitos are so trying. ~ Robert Alexander

My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late
our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to return for something you've forgotten. ~ Sarah Miller

I'll pretend, I tell myself. Pretending is safer than believing. ~ Sarah Miller