I cannot be your mistress,” I say simply. “I would rather die than dishonor my name. I cannot bring that shame on my family.” I pause. I am anxious not to be too discouraging. “Whatever I might wish in my heart,” I say very softly.
She has followed me into every single room in this palace, and then she followed Anne Neville when she was her lady-in-waiting, too. She walked behind Anne at her coronation, carrying the train. Perhaps Lady Margaret is feeling that it’s her turn to be the first lady now, and she wants someone trailing along behind her.
My advice to you is to guard yourself as you rise and destroy your enemies as you fall.
If a writer believes that women do nothing, then he will have to fantasize about their lives to make a good story. If a writer believes that women are weak, rivalrous, and moody, then she will produce an account of them in which they cannot work together, or be trusted. But I know from my reading and from my own life that women are powerful agents of change who can collaborate together, who may love each other, and I base my story on the reality. But.
He has such kind eyes.” “Certainly he has eyes, but they do not have the power of emotion, only of sight.
There is no one who loves peace more than a soldier.
No,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll ever have a fancy for a man.” “Hard luck on the man who loves you,” Will offered neutrally. “Very,” I said. I shot a sideways look at him. “A disaster for the man who loves me,” I repeated. “If he married me he would find me always cold. If he did not, he could waste his life in loving me and I would never return it.
There is nothing that sickens a country more than its own people fighting against one another. It destroys families; it is killing us daily.
He knew then, as she knew always, that it does not matter if a wife is half fish, if a husband is all mortal. If there is love enough, then nothing – not nature, not even death itself – can come between two who love each other.
Twelfth night, of all the nights of the year, is one where shapes shift and identities flicker.
Where have I offended you? I take God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble and obedient wife. These twenty years and more I have been your true wife, and by me you have had many children though it pleased God to call them out of this world. And when you had me at the first I was a true maid, without touch of man – ” Henry.
It’s as if our name is both our greatest pride and our curse,” I say.
She would not let it go. “I had thought to be Queen of England and see my son on the throne,” she repeated.
This is God’s victory: not mine.
The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.
To do one man’s bidding to please another man and get nothing for yourself but heartbreak.
At the thought of her death I felt a confusing pang of genuine distress mixed with elation.
It’s such a pointless unhappiness. I am so tired of it. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? But I am so tired of being unhappy.
I don’t ask for more than a smile and to be in your prayers. I love from afar.
If you hate a woman, the first thing you destroy is her reputation.
But you remember this – great wealth or position is not a right, and you don’t deserve it however hard you work. It is chance, and the labor of others, that brings a man wealth. Don’t forget that others have earned your fortune for you. Never imagine you deserve it.