Mary Balogh

“May intelligent, bookish ladies sometimes be reformed?" he asked her.She thought about it."I suppose it may be within the bounds of possibility," she said, "even if not of probability.”

“Eunice Goddard," he said, all pretense of sleepiness gone from his eyes, "will you marry me? I have no flowery speech prepared and would feel remarkably idiotic delivering it even if I had. Will you just simply marry me, my love? Because I love you? Will you take the risk? I am fully aware that there is a risk. I can only urge you to take a chance on me while I promise to do my very best to love and cherish you for the rest of my days and even perhaps beyond them.”

“He knew he was alive when he was with her, whatever the devil that meant.Whatever the devil it did mean, it made all the difference.And he was not even sure what that meant.”

“Tell me, Lady Angeline, is there a color not represented in your rather splendid riding hat? It would be a shame if there were. It would be sitting all alone on a palette somewhere, feeling rejected and dejected.”

“ Why , instead of teaching her poetry and drama and needlework, had her governesses not taught the most important lesson anyone could learn - that life was really not going to be easy after one was free of the schoolroom?”

“You just have not...oh, learned who yo are yet.”

“(Edward describing Angeline's bonnet)"Then it is overbright and those colors should never been seen togther upon the same person, not to mention the same garment ." he said. "And it actually suits you perfectly. It suits your character.”

“I would not wish to deny you your dreams. But have a care. They can be dashed in one impulsive moment.”

“Was something worth having, though, if it didn't present a challenge?”

“This was it. This was what she had longed for throughout the lonely years of her girlhood.Suddenly she felt lonelier than she had ever felt.And so excited she could barely breathe,Tresham stepped up beside her, drew her arm through his again, set his free hand lightly over hers, and said not a word.She had never loved him more.”

“That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be . Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing. ”

“He would never know know her. Such intimacy but no communication, because words - even if she could speak or write them - could never explain her world to him.”

“But Ashley had always understood. He had always known there was a person behind the silence - not just a person who listened with her eyes and would have responded in similar words if she could have, but one who inhabited a world of her own and lived in it quiet as richly as anyone in his world. With Ashley there had always been a language. There had always been a way of giving him glimpses of herself.”

“Idleness was so often despised. And yet it was on idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace.”

“She wondered if she would have tumbled into love with him during the past week if her heart had been whole, if her soul had no been shattered long ago. She rather thought she might have. But a heart and soul could not be mended by the power of the will, she had discovered over seven years. And so she had accepted reality and moved on.”

“Leave love to take its course.”

“Tis what marriage is all about, madam," he said. "Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and taste of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing.”

“Everyone should know what it is like to be called by name. By the name of the unique person one is atheart.”

“Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.”

“It was hard to leave. But it was impossible to stay. He was leaving from choice because he was young and energetic and adventurous and had long wanted to carve a life of his own.He was going to new possibility, new dreams. But he was leaving behind places and people. And though, being young, he was sure he would see them all again some day, he knew too that many years might pass before he did so.It was not easy to leave.”

“Now she realized she had never been kissed before. Not really. Not like this.Ah, never like this.”

“They were all true today but tomorrow they would be a little less so and next week less so again. It was in the nature of strong emotion that it faded away over time.”

“We all learn to bury a broken heart beneath layers of dignity”

“...but most roads I have learned from past experience lead somewhere eventually.”

“I would be consumed by you,' she said, and blinked her eyes furiously when she felt them fill with tears. 'You would sap all the energy and all the joy from me. You would put out all the fire of my vitality.''Give me a chance to fan the flames of that fire,' he said, 'and to nurture your joy.”

“And infatuated be damned. He was near to being blinded by his attraction to her. He was in love, damn it all. He disliked her, he resented her, he disapproved of almost everything about her, yet he was head over ears in love with her, like a foolish schoolboy.He wondered grimly what he was going to do about it.He was not amused.Or in any way pleased.”

“If you have always suspected your sister of an inclination to madness, it will be my pleasure to confirm your worst fears.”

“I am free, you see," she said, "to love or to withhold love. Love and dependence need no longer be the same thing to me. I am free to love. That is why I love you, and it is the way I love you.”

“This time her heart would not break, even though it would hurt and hurt for a long time to come. Perhaps for the rest of her life. But it would not break. She had the strength to go on alone.”

“But it was possible to teach what one could not practice.”

“Every...woman," the old lady said, "loves a ...rogue.”

“And yet day and night meet fleetingly at twilight and dawn," he said, lowering his voice again and narrowing his eyes and moving his head a quarter of an inch closer to hers. "And their merging sometimes affords the beholder the most enchanted moments of all the twenty four hours. A sunrise or sunset can be ablaze with brilliance and arouse all the passion, all the yearning, in the soul of the beholder.”

“There is something infinitely better than happily-ever-after. There is happiness. Happiness is a living, dynamic thing, Eve, and has to be worked on every moment for the rest of our lives. It is a far more exciting prospect than that silly static idea of a happily-ever-after. Would you not agree?" - Aidan Bedwyn”

“What sort of man could you love for a lifetime?" he asked her.She was silent for a while. He guessed that she was considering her answer. "A kind man," she said. "When we are young and foolish we do not realize how essential a component of love kindness is. It is perhaps the most important quality. And an honorable man. Always doing the right thing no matter what."His heart sank-on both account."And a strong man," she said. "Strong enough to be vulnerable, to take risks, to be honest even when honesty might expose him to ridicule or rejection. And someone who would put himself at the center of my world even before knowing that I would be willing to do the same for him. A man foolish and brave enough to tell me that he loves me even when I have hidden all signs that I love him in return.""Eve-" he said."He would have to be tall and broad and dark and hook-nosed," she said. "And frowning much of the time, pretending he is tough and impervious to all the finer emotions. And then smiling occasionally to light up my heart and my life."Good God!"He would have to be you," she said. "no one else would do. Which is just as well, considering the fact that I am married to you...”

“I have read somewhere that we often spend a lifetime searching for what we already have.”

“Tonight seems eons away, but there are these moments.”

“Where was Bewcastle?But then he was there, standing on the terrace some distance away, and such was the power of his presence that everyone seemed to sense it an fell back away from Alleyne even as they stopped talking. There was still all sorts of noise, of course - horses, carriage wheels, voices, the water spouting out of the fountain - but it seemed to Alleyne as if complete silence fell.Bewcastle had already seen him. His gaze was steady and silver-eyed and inscrutable. His hand reached for the gold-handled, jewel-studded quizzing glass he always wore with formal attire and raised it halfway to his eyes in a characteristic gesture. Then he came striding along the terrace with uncharacteristic speed and did not stop coming until he had caught Alleyne up in a tight, wordless embrace that lasted perhaps a whole minute while Alleyne dipped his forehead to his brother's shoulder and felt at last that he was safe. It was an extraordinary moment. He had been little more than a child when his father died, but Wulfric himself had been only seventeen. Alleyne had never thought of him as a father figure. Indeed, he had often resented the authority his brother wielded over them with such unwavering strictness, and often with apparant impersonality and lack of humor. He had always thought of his eldest brother as aloof, unfeeling, totally self sufficient. A cold fish. And yet it was in Wulfric's arm that he felt his homecoming most acutely. He felt finally and completely and unconditionally loved.An extraordinary moment indeed.”

“Had he healed one wound only to open another?”

“But it is only people who have plenty of money who can despise it. To the rest of us it is important. It can at least put food in our stomachs clothes on our backs, and it can at least feed our dreams.”

“If you are never frightened, sir, you would never find out what you was made of and what you was capable of doing. You would never become a better man than what you started out being. P'raps this is what you will discover - what you are made of and what you are capable of. And when you finally do remember who you are, p'raps you will find that you have become a better man than he ever was. P'raps he was a man why never ever grew any more once he reached manhood. P'raps he needed to do something drastic like losing his memory so that he could get his life unstuck.”

“I have always been a spectator of life, you know, never a participant. Never. But now I am. Today I am, and I an awed and deliriously happy. This is the adventure I asked for, the adventure I am having I will be forever grateful to you.”

“But I was a dreamer, you see, not a weakling.”

“The people we love are usually stronger than we give them credit for. It is the nature of love, perhaps, to want to shoulder all the pain rather than see the loved one suffer. But sometimes pain is better than emptiness. I have been so empty Kit. All my life. So full of emptiness. That is strange paradox is nit not - full of emptiness?”

“this has been a birthday best forgotten.”“Most birthdays are, milord,” his man said agreeably”

“If we were to see the grandeur of our real selves, I suspect we would also see the necessity of living up to who we really are. And most of us are too lazy for that. Or else we are having too good a time enjoying our less than perfect lives to be bothered. (Claudia Martin)”

“And of course the word love has many shades of meaning, as do many, many of the words in our living, breathing language”

“I do not admire greatness that has no substance.”

“There had to be a reason why they were not going to marry. They had both been so adamant about it.What the devil was the reason?”

“There is no such thing as time. There is only our reaction to the inexorable progress of life.”

“And so silence and ...darkness hold happiness and joy?" he said softly."Assuredly," she said, "provided one listens to the silence and gazes deeply into the darkness. Everything is there. Everything.”