Elizabeth Peters

“I would never have supposed that inexperienced girl was capable of such cold-blooded, calculating manipulation! ”

“The cat Horus shot out from under the table and headed for the door, his ears flattened and his tail straight out. There he encountered Abdullah, who had been waiting for us on the verandah and who had, I supposed, been alarmed by Emerson's shouts and hurried to discover what disaster had prompted them. The cat got entangled in Abdullah's skirts and a brief interval of staggering (by Abdullah), scratching (by Horus) and swearing (by both parties) ensued before Horus freed himself and departed. ”

“...DAMNATION!'No device of the printer's art, not even capital letters, can indicate the intensity of that shriek of rage. Emerson is known to his Egyptian workers by the admiring sobriquet of Father of Curses. The volume as well as the content of his remarks earned him the title; but this shout was extraordinary even by Emerson's standards, so much so that the cat Bastet, who had become more or less accustomed to him, started violently, and fell with a splash into the bathtub.The scene that followed is best not described in detail. My efforts to rescue the thrashing feline were met with hysterical resistance; water surged over the edge of the tub and onto the floor; Emerson rushed to the rescue; Bastet emerged in one mighty leap, like a whale broaching, and fled -- cursing, spitting, and streaming water. She and Emerson met in the doorway of the bathroom.The ensuing silence was broken by the quavering voice of the safragi, the servant on duty outside our room, inquiring if we required his assistance. Emerson, seated on the floor in a puddle of soapy water, took a long breath. Two of the buttons popped off his shirt and splashed into the water. In a voice of exquisite calm he reassured the servant, and then transferred his bulging stare to me.I trust you are not injured, Peabody. Those scratches...'The bleeding has almost stopped, Emerson. It was not Bastet's fault.'It was mine, I suppose,' Emerson said mildly.Now, my dear, I did not say that. Are you going to get up from the floor?'No,' said Emerson.He was still holding the newspaper. Slowly and deliberately he separated the soggy pages, searching for the item that had occasioned his outburst. In the silence I heard Bastet, who had retreated under the bed, carrying on a mumbling, profane monologue. (If you ask how I knew it was profane, I presume you have never owned a cat.)”

“Sekhmet crawled onto Ramses's lap and began to purr. 'The creature oozes like a furry slug,' said Ramses, eyeing it without favor.”

“Nefret had always had an uncanny ability to read his thoughts. 'Did she cry?' she asked sweetly. 'And then you kissed her? You shouldn't have done that. I'm sure you meant well, but kissing someone out of pity is always a mistake.”

“Another dead body. Every year it is the same. Every year, another dead body...”

“Is is difficult to be angry with a gentleman who pays you compliments, even impertinent compliments. Especially impertinent compliments. ”

“I have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny.”

“The combination of physical strength and moral sincerity combined with tenderness of heart is exactly what is wanted in a husband.--Ameila Peabody”

“Most men are reasonably useful in a crisis. The difficulty lies in convincing them that the situation has reached a critical point”

“No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.”

“I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it.”

“Many persons lead lives of crushing boredom.”

“I would not be at all surprised to find that it was for gold that Cain committed the first murder. (It happened a very long time ago, and Holy Writ, though no doubt divinely inspired, is a trifle careless about details. God is not a historian).”

“Marriage, in my view, should be a balanced stalemate between equal adversaries.”

“The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.”