The Scarlet Pimpernel Quotes

The Crimson Pirate, The Mark of Zorro, Captain Blood, The Black Pirate, Adventures of Don Juan, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Sea Hawk, The Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche, ~ Cary Elwes

I have so often been asked the question: "But how did you come to think of The Scarlet Pimpernel?" And my answer has always been: "It was God's will that I should." And to you moderns, who perhaps do not believe as I do, I will say, "In the chain of my life, there were so many links, all of which tended towards bringing me to the fulfillment of my destiny. ~ Emmuska Orczy

Between the ages of ten and fifteen in St. Petersburg, I must have read more fiction and poetry - English, Russian and French - than in any other five-year period of my life. I relished especially the works of Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, Flaubert, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Alexander Blok. On another level, my heroes were the Scarlet Pimpernel, Phileas Fogg, and Sherlock Holmes. In other words, I was a perfectly normal trilingual child in a family with a large library. At a later period, in Western Europe, between the ages of 20 and 40, my favorites were Housman, Rupert Brooke, Norman Douglas, Bergson, Joyce, Proust, and Pushkin. Of these top favorites, several - Poe, Jules Verne, Emmuska Orezy, Conan Doyle, and Rupert Brooke - have lost the glamour and thrill they held for me. The others remain intact and by now are probably beyond change as far as I am concerned. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

History was my favourite subject at school and in my spare time I read historical novels voraciously from Heidi to the Scarlet Pimpernel and from Georgette Heyer to Agatha Christie. ~ Sara Sheridan

You know my belief in bald-headed Fortune, with the one solitary hair. Well, I meant to grab that hair ... ~ Emmuska Orczy

Odd's fish, m'dear, would you have me challenge the poor countess to a duel? ~ The Scarlet Pimpernel

His pride and her beauty had been in direct conflict, and his pride had remained the conqueror. ~ Emmuska Orczy

The Scarlet Pimpernel is the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D.31 'Best Disciple' competition. ~ Rowan Atkinson

From the first, you enchanted me. You are more than beautiful. You are smart and strong and determined. When I'm with you. I want to be a better man. I want to be worthy of you. I want to provide for you I want to give you the life you deserve. One day, I will. Because I know, deep in my soul, that to part is to die. - Gideon to Scarlet (wedding vows) ~ Gena Showalter

So," Nate attempted conversation for the third time. He seemed to be in a better mood lately. "Do you guys maybe want to talk about how every uncomfortable this is?" He smiled tightly, looking first at Tristan, then at Scarlet. "Because I don't know about you, but I feel awkward. Let's hash it out, shall we? Tristan," Nate said brightly. "We'll start with you. How are you feeling?"
"Annoyed."
"I like your honesty and openness." Nate turned to Scarlet. "What about you? How are you feeling?"
"Tired," she said. "Nine in the morning is too early for needles."
Tristan said, "Maybe if you hadn't stayed out so late, you wouldn't be so tired."
Scarlet said, "Look who's decided to speak again. Suddenly the silent and dark Tristan has an opinion on my life."
"Oh, I have many opinions."
"See?" Nate said, his smile tighter than before. "Isn't all this openness refreshing? ~ Chelsea Fine

Trees spit scarlet and orange leaves to the earth, turning the fields to fire. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Wolf, are you asking me to be ... your alpha female?"
He hesitated.
Scarlet couldn't help it - she burst into laughter. "Oh - I'm sorry. That was mean. I know I shouldn't tease you about this."
Still grinning, she made to retract her hand, but he was suddenly gripping it, refusing to relinquish the touch. "You just look so scared, like I'm going to disappear any minute. We're stuck on a spaceship, Wolf. I'm not going anywhere."
His lips twitched, his nervousness beginning to ease away, though his hand stayed tense over hers.
"Alpha female," he murmured. "I sort of like that."
Beaming, Scarlet gave a mild shrug. "It could grow on me. ~ Marissa Meyer

Lillian was determined that her next role would be Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and assumed she only needed to find the right actor to play opposite her as Reverend Dimmesdale. Mayer informed her there was a much larger issue at stake; The Scarlet Letter was on the Hays office "blacklist" of books that could not be filmed. The very idea of a blacklist was ridiculous to Lillian and she took up the matter directly with Will Hays. While he would occasionally publicly chastise the studios, Hays never forgot that the full name of his office was the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America and worked to smooth the path any and every way he could. He told Lillian that the major source of objection was "the Protestant Church, especially the Methodists," and directed her to the heads of several church and women's organizations where she forcefully presented her case. Even with Hays's assistance, no other actress had the personal and professional reputation pure enough to garner the response she received: the ban would be lifted if she was "personally responsible" for the film.

Lillian turned her attention to finding the consummate Dimmesdale and Mayer suggested she watch Lars Hanson in The Saga of Gosta Berling. The studio boss had seen Mauritz Stiller's film in Berlin the previous December and he immediately put the director and the film's three stars, Hanson, Mona Martenson, and Greta Gustafsson, all under contract. Lillian agreed ~ Cari Beauchamp

Scarlet brushed her hair off her shoulder. "It's a lemon cake. My grandmother's special recipe. But" - her gaze swooped down Cinder's dress - "you might want to wait until after the coronation so you don't get frosting all over yourself."
Winter snorted and grabbed the tray away from Kai. "Let's not be cruel. One should never save cake for later when it can be eaten now." She slid the cake onto a priceless silk divan. ~ Marissa Meyer

Good writing is always a breaking of the soil, clearing away prejudices, pulling up of sour weeds of crooked thinking, stripping the turf so as to get at what is fertile beneath. It would be amusing to carry the simile further. Those bulbs that flower in the sand and wither! The gay fiction annual that has to be planted again every year! Those experimental plants from Russia, France, and Greenwich Village that are always getting winter killed - confound 'em! - is it worth while planting them again? The stocky perennial that keeps coming up and coming up - so easy to grow and so ugly. Scarlet sage that gives a touch of fiery sin to the edge of the suburbanite's concrete walk! And then the good flowers - as honest as they are beautiful! The well-ordered gar den! The climbing rose that escapes and is the most beautiful of all! ~ Henry Seidel Canby

Scarlet realized that in the five years since last she'd seen him, she'd come to match her father's height. They stood eye to eye; she burning up on the inside, he frowning as though he wanted to be sorry but couldn't quite grasp the emotion. ~ Marissa Meyer

Scarlet blinked tears from her eyes. "I ... this is ... it's perfect, but I think you might have forgotten one important element." She turned back to Wolf. "There's no officiant here. Who's going to marry us?" Wolf's grin widened, and he glanced at Kai. Scarlet followed the look. "Seriously? ~ Marissa Meyer

His eyes tracked the scarlet trail to its beginning: the top of the stairs leading to the parking lot.
My Livia will come to me on this path. ~ Debra Anastasia

The young man, perched insecurely in the slen­der branches, rocked till he felt slightly drunk, reached down the boughs, where the scarlet beady cherries hung thick underneath, and tore off handful after handful of the sleek, cool-fleshed fruit. Cherries touched his ears and his neck as he stretched forward, their chill fingertips sending a flash down his blood. All shades of red, from a golden vermilion to a rich crimson, glowed and met his eyes under a dark­ness of leaves. ~ D.H. Lawrence

I hear you're single now." Aaron gave a white-toothed smile and tossed his hair.
"Where did you hear that?" Scarlet cocked her head, hoping to find the leak.
He pulled his stool over and sat down. "A little bird told me."
Why did people use that saying? Little birds didn't talk. They chirped. And, unless Aaron spoke bird, he certainly wasn't deciphering any bird chirpings. ~ Chelsea Fine

So? Will you marry me?"
Scarlet started to smile.
"Wait. Before you answer that," said thorn, gesturing around the room, "i think you should know that the store we got all this stuff doesn't except returns."
Casting her gaze skywards, Scarlet said, "Well in that case. Yes. Yes of course i will. ~ Marissa Meyer

Love gives you the strength to face an army, vampire or human ... Love gives you a reason to press on through the storm. Love helps you think clearly and follow the clues ahead, if you know where they lead. ~ J.X. Burros

She had worn a sequined, strapless wedding gown, and left her bridesmaid to wear brightly flowered dresses to fit for a kind of pornographic milkmaid: low-cut and laced up the midriff with a sort of shoelace. What Scarlet O'Hara might have done with a shower curtain, if she were trying to snag a plumber. ~ Lorrie Moore

Historically the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, and they promptly turned around and started persecuting the people they didn't agree with - the scarlet letter A, and the stocks and the dunking board came from that. That puritanism is still there. ~ Hugh Hefner

Take care, Seeker. You have the gift. Use it. Use everything you have to fight. Don't give in. Don't let him rule you. If you are to die, die fighting with everything you have, everything you know. That is the way of a dragon. ~ Terry Goodkind

The smell of manure, of sun on foliage, of evaporating water, rose to my head; two steps farther, and I could look down into the vegetable garden enclosed within its tall pale of reeds - rich chocolate earth studded emerald green, frothed with the white of cauliflowers, jeweled with the purple globes of eggplant and the scarlet wealth of tomatoes. ~ Doris Lessing

He looked at her with his green don't-lie-to-me-woman eyes and Scarlet dropped her guilty gaze to the mahogany desktop, searching around until she found a paperweight shaped like a pyramid to stare at. ~ Chelsea Fine

A high upland common was this moor, two miles from end to end, and full of furze and bracken. There were no trees and not a house, nothing but a line of telegraph poles following the road, sweeping with rigidity from north to south; nailed upon one of them a small scarlet notice to stonethrowers was prominent as a wound. On so high and wide a region as Shag Moor the wind always blew, or if it did not quite blow there was a cool activity in the air. The furze was always green and growing, and, taking no account of seasons, often golden. Here in summer solitude lounged and snoozed; at other times, as now, it shivered and looked sinister. ("The Higgler") ~ A.E. Coppard

Self-publishing in comics is core to the whole artform. There is no scarlet letter in comics as there still is, to some degree, in prose. As no publisher for a long time would publish serious work in comics, the only way a lot of it came out was because of self-publishing. Many of the greatest works of the medium are self-published. ~ Kieron Gillen

I am made for autumn. Summer and I have a fickle relationship, but everything about autumn is perfect to me. Woolly jumpers, Wellington boot, scarves, thin first, then thick, socks. The low slanting light, the crisp mornings, the chill in my fingers, those last warm sunny days before the rain and the wind. Her moody hues and subdued palate punctuated every now and again by a brilliant orange, scarlet or copper goodbye. She is my true love. ~ Alys Fowler

When Rapunzel saw the prince, she fell over him and began to weep, and her tears dropped into his eyes ~ Marissa Meyer

We had a signal. When I turned the pail upside down by the kitchen house, that meant everything was clear. Mauma would open the window and throw down a taffy she stole from missus' room. Sometimes here came a bundle of cloth scraps - real nice calicos, gingham, muslin, some import linen. One time, that true brass thimble. Her favorite thing to take was scarlet-red thread. She would wind it up in her pocket and walk right out the house with it. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

One of Francie's favorite stores was the one which sold nothing but tea, coffee, and spices. It was an exciting place of rows of lacquered bins and strange, romantic, exotics odors. There were a dozen scarlet coffee bins with adventurous words written across the front in black China ink: Brazil! Argentine! Turkish! Java! Mixed Blend! The tea was in smaller bins: beautiful bins with sloping covers. They read: Oolong! Formosa! Orange Pekoe! Black China! Flowering Almond! Jasmine! Irish Tea! The spices were in miniature bins behind the counter. Their names marches in a row across the shelves: cinnamon
cloves
ginger
all-spice
ball nutmeg
curry
peppercorns
sage
thyme
marjoram. ~ Betty Smith

Don't come any closer!" Scarlet yelled. The chicken clucked and dawdled away. "I will shoot, you know."
"I know." A flicker of kindness passed over him and he pointed at his temple. "You'll want to aim for the head. That usually makes for a fatal shot. Or, if you're feeling shaky, the torso. It's a larger target."
"Your head looks pretty big from here. ~ Marissa Meyer

What are you two doing in here?" Mike Iglehart wore an eye-blistering white lab coat and a surly expression. "This isn't some teenage make-out room."
My face flushed scarlet. "Excuse me?"
"We were using the computer!" Ben barked. "That's it. ~ Kathy Reichs

The bells gave tongue: Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower, wide mouths rising and falling, brazen tongues clamouring, huge wheels turning to the dance of the leaping ropes. Tin tan din dan bim bam bom bo--tan tin din dan bam bim bo bom--tan dan tin bam din bo bim bom--every bell in her place striking tuneably, hunting up, hunting down, dodging, snapping, laying her blows behind, making her thirds and fourths, working down to lead the dance again. Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells--little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Cinder's tirade ceased and she gaped at Scarlet. Between them, Thorne settled his chin on his palm as if watching a great show - though his free hand still held the shotgun aimed at Wolf's head. ~ Marissa Meyer

Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary was beheaded, the people who were watching saw her skirts moving about and they thought her headless body was trying to get itself to its feet. But the movement turned out to be her dog, which she had carried to the block with her, hidden in her skirts. Mary Stuart is supposed to have faced her execution with grace and courage (she wore a scarlet chemise to suggest she was being martyred), but I don't think she could have been so brave if she had not secretly been holding tight to her Skye terrier, feeling his warm, silky fur against her trembling skin. ~ Elizabeth Wein