Step back in time and immerse yourself in the rich worlds brought to life by historical fiction. These carefully selected quotes capture the essence of the genre, highlighting the power of storytelling to connect us with the past. Whether you’re a devoted fan or new to historical fiction, these 69 quotes will inspire your imagination and deepen your appreciation for history told through compelling narratives.
1. “I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915.” - Laurie R. King
2. “True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.” - Alexandre Dumas
3. “No, It's not fair. But I was thinking more along the lines of the Pentagon and Washington itself. Sometimes I suspect that those who are running things might grow addicted to power. Secrecy's essential in wartime, but once in place, will it ever be removed?” - Marge Piercy
4. “Tethered to the universe by tendrils of history, with threads of continuity descending to God knows where, I see that I'm more than the dust I'll become.” - Carol Kenny
5. “Over time, this unspoken attration continued to blossom, refusing to dwindle or fade, though they had little opportunity to foster or nourish it. Slowly and patiently, Robert's sheer persistence in the chase had revealed his heart, and Charlotte came to realize the nameless thing between them was love.” - Emery Lee
6. “Yes, my boy, you are indeed much faster, bigger, and stronger than me and an altogether superior speciman of God's creation, but I have seen your like before. Only one of us can be master, and it won't be you.” - Emery Lee
7. “Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.” - Oscar Wilde
8. “He watched the newly arrived commuters as they stepped into the carriage, pushed their way down the tube, the odours from their damp clothes mingling, giving off varying degrees of mustiness: London grime, or smoke from airless offices. A woman wearing a blue swing coat glanced along the carriage, casting around for an empty seat. Her pale skin, the searching green eyes, reminded him of Emma. Briefly, he felt his breath catch; he stood, clambered back over his neighbour and indicated for her to take his seat. And so his mind stayed with Emma when he knew he should be working out a strategy for telling Dorothy of his news. But Emma was never far away; like the glitter balls in dance halls, she would slowly rotate in his memory, different facets reappearing, as the hues changed in her auburn hair.” - Amanda Sington-Williams
9. “I'm learning not to hope for what I can't control...” - Leila Meacham
10. “Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history’s illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities.” - Lauren Willig
11. “Midnight Omen Deja vu" - Because everyone should experience love in the Caribbean...at least once in a lifetime.” - Marti Melville
12. “They rode for a while in silence, a tiny island in the smoky stream of marching men. Then Lee said slowly, in a strange, soft, slow tone of voice, "Soldiering has one great trap." Longstreet turned to see his face. Lee was riding slowly ahead, without expression. He spoke in that same slow voice. "To be a good soldier you must love the army. But to be a good officer you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love. This is...a very hard thing to do. No other profession requires it. That is one reason why there are so very few good officers. Although there are many good men." Lee rarely lectured. Longstreet sensed a message beyond it. He waited. Lee said, "We don't fear our own deaths, you and I." He smiled slightly, then glanced away. "We protect ourselves out of military necessity, not do not protect yourself enough and must give thought to it. I need you. But the point is, we are afraid to die. We are prepared for our own deaths, and for the deaths of comrades. We learn that at the Point. But I have seen this happen: we are not prepared for as many deaths as we have to face, inevitably as the war goes on. There comes a time..." He paused. He had been gazing straight ahead, away from Longstreet. Now, black-eyed, he turned back, glanced once quickly into Longstreet's eyes, then looked away. "We are never prepared for so many to die. So you understand? No one is. We expect some chosen few. We expect an occasional empty chair, a toast to dear departed comrades. Victory celebrations for most of us, a hallowed death for a few. But the war goes on. And the men die. The price gets ever higher. Some officers...can pay no longer. We are prepared to lose some of us." He paused again. "But never ALL of us. Surely not all of us. But...that is the trap. You can hold nothing back when you attack. You must commit yourself totally. And yet ,if they all die, a man must ask himself, will it have been worth it?” - Michael Shaara
13. “Kevin looks at me and I know he isn’t seeing the little girl I use to be, all pigtails and gangly limbs. He isn’t seeing my mother’s daughter or even my mother anymore. As his eyes linger over me, stopping here and there in the most uncomfortable places, I know he isn’t really even seeing me as I am. The bloodshot eyes staring out of the alcohol-flushed face are seeing a girl, nearly of age, who owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.--Rocky Evans” - Gwenn Wright
14. “Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.” - Jennifer Donnelly
15. “She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d'Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness.” - Jennifer Donnelly
16. “Roger speaking to Brianna: It's too important. You don't forget having a dad."You do remember your father?"No. I remember yours.” - Diana Gabaldon
17. “Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim.” - Philippa Gregory
18. “Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love.” - Philippa Gregory
19. “She had wanted more than she could have.She had wanted him, and more... she had wanted him to want her.In the name of something bigger than tradition, bolder than reputation, more important than a silly title.” - Sarah MacLean
20. “Why else do we write and write except to move our readers?” - Jerome Charyn
21. “She says it is a school for bluestockings which, according to her, is really only a fashionable way of saying it is a school for ugly girls who cannot find suitable husbands. To tease her, for I believe it is one of his greatest pleasures in this life, my father bought a pair of blue silk stockings for me the day we received my letter of acceptance. That evening and the next, father and I dined alone.” - Gwenn Wright
22. “And unbidden, floating into consciousness came the truth of his utter wretchedness. Even the very earth seemed to cry out in pain. Hodburn Wood” - J. Tyson-Capper
23. “How did I get here How did I end up in the arms of a boy I barely knew but knew I didn't want to lose I wondered what I would have thought of Andrius in Lithuania. Would I have liked him Would he have liked me” - Ruta Sepetys
24. “How many times can a heart be shattered and still be pieced back together? How many times before the damage is irreparable?” - Gwenn Wright
25. “Like billiard balls colliding our courses were altered.” - Linda Collison
26. “The British could leave and half India wouldn't notice us leaving just as they didn't notice us arriving. All our reforms of administration might be reforms on the moon for all it has to do with them..” - J.G. Farrell
27. “Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it," he said with deep bitterness. "I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
28. “Sonetimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself.” - Sarah Sundin
29. “Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.” - Louis L'Amour
30. “Catch on fire with enthusiasm, and people will come for miles to watch you burn” - Jo Ann Butler
31. “Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there.” - Bernie Mcgill
32. “Riding a bull must be a bit like flying an ultralight. You get up there and have an exhilarating ride, but then you still have to get down.” - Susan Spence
33. “Ain’t nothing too serious. Even death is a joke on the old devil, if we are living for the Lord.” - Nancy B. Brewer
34. “Soeur Seraphina gently removed my lace fontanges. It was named for the King’s mistress Angelique de Fontanges, who had lost her hat while hunting one day and had hastily tied up her curls with her garter. The King had admired the effect, and the next day all the court ladies had appeared with their curls tied back with lace” - Kate Forsyth
35. “Are you a traveling man he asked?” - Nancy B. Brewer
36. “He is dressed in a long, white robe and in his hand is a white cap. I draw up as he passes down the hall; he does not see me. Shortly I hear a horse leaving. There is much I do not know about him, but tonight I know one of his secrets. He is a midnight rider.” - Nancy B. Brewer
37. “It was a warm and natural feeling to be there. We were not black or white people. We were just people bound together by love and understanding. As I walked out of that church, I felt like I had rediscovered my inner peace.” - Nancy B. Brewer
38. “Jennings is too tough and honest a writer to let anyone off her moral hook, even her hero.” - Maureen Jennings
39. “THE FIGHTING IN THE PEACH ORCHARD AT GETTYSBURGPROLOGUE"The same young men who crowded each other as they faced the recruiters' tables now crowded each other as they died.” - Charles Phillips
40. “Every great day has a story and a song!” - Faith Reese Martin
41. “Through enjoyment we endure.” - Florence Ditlow
42. “A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.” - Jane Yolen
43. “She turned her painted blue eyes toward the assistant and said something in French before she left.” - Nancy B. Brewer
44. “You can only chase a butterfly for so long.” - Jane Yolen
45. “Forget the threat of Hell's infernal flames. The true torture would condemn a man to wait and wait and wait - for an eternity” - Sharon Kay Penman
46. “Where are these fucking guns coming from?” - Michael Manley former prime minister of Jamaica
47. “The urge to draw near to the female silhouette resided deep in the ancient center of a man...” - Kelly O'Connor McNees
48. “He draws a line under his conclusions. Says, 'Gregory, what should I do about the great worm?' 'Send a commission against it, sir,' the boy says. 'It must be put down.' He gives his son a long look. 'You do know it's Arthur Cobbler's tales?' Gregory gives him a long look back. 'Yes, I do know.' He sounds regretful. 'But it makes people so happy when I believe them.” - Hilary Mantel
49. “... every monarch needs a blow on the head, from time to time.” - Hilary Mantel
50. “How many men can say, as I must, 'I am a man whose only friend is the King of England'? I have everything, you would think. And yet take Henry away, and I have nothing.” - Hilary Mantel
51. “You know what it's like when a cart overturns in the street? Everybody you meet has witnessed it. They saw a man's leg sliced clean off. They saw a woman gasp her last. They saw the goods looted, thieves stealing from the back-end while the carter was crushed at the front. They heard a man roar out his last confession, while another whispered his last will and testament. And if all the people who say they were there had really been there, then the dregs of London would have drained to the one spot, the gaols emptied of thieves, the beds empty of whores, and all the lawyers standing on the shoulders of the butchers to get a better look.” - Hilary Mantel
52. “No man as godly as George, the only fault he finds with God is that he made folk with too few orifices. If George could meet a woman with a quinny under her armpit, he would call out 'Glory be' and set her up in a house and visit her every day, until the novelty wore off. Nothing is forbidden to George, you see. He'd go to it with a terrier bitch if she wagged her tail at him and said bow-wow.'For once he is struck silent. He knows he will never get it out of his mind, the picture of George in a hairy grapple with a little ratting dog.” - Hilary Mantel
53. “That is our Shield Ring, our last stronghold; not the barrier fells and the totter-moss between, but something in the hearts of men.” - Rosemary Sutcliff
54. “I could faintly smell the ocean. I imagined being one of the old oak trees standing there swaying in the wind and braving all sorts of weather. I pondered what they had seen in the past and what they might see in the future” - Nancy B. Brewer
55. “Go back to bed, Cowan. I want no promises from you.” - Sandi Layne
56. “Cowan son of Branieucc, you're the only one of my people that I know for sure still lives.” - Sandi Layne
57. “Most of [her ashes] fell into the river in a long gray curtain. But some was caught by the wind and blown upward toward the blue spring sky where it swirled a moment in the air, before dissolving into sunlight.” - Kimberly Cutter
58. “Today’s breakfast consist of rice and a piece of bread fried in a bit of salt pork grease. At least I have my memories of grand banquets and fine foods, but this is all the children have ever known. I suppose it is best not to have anything to compare.” - Nancy B. Brewer
59. “I understand, gentlemen,” John Kennedy said. “If you find that life it’s not easy, let me tell you, death is worse.” - Pierre Marshesso
60. “One word was the method by which the state collected their information. They could reel in the informants and spread them out like tentacles, ready to sting in any direction.” - F.C. Malby
61. “The others moved in like a wake of vultures, ready to devour their prey. she had seen it on television once. 'Scavengers,' Tatinek called them. They swoop in and feed off the carcasses of animals that are too weak to escape - lots of them on battlefields. This looked the same, only the victim wasn't there, just his writing, his typewriter, and bits of dark paper.” - F.C. Malby
62. “As the sun lowered into the city's skyline, casting an orange glow over the islands, Jana could feel people's hopes rising.” - F.C. Malby
63. “Mr Martinek turned back to Jana. 'Thirty-eight per cent alcohol, sixty-two per cent fire - all the way from Karlovy Vary.” - F.C. Malby
64. “The sublime beauty was almost hidden withing the castle walls. She believed that the treasured things in life were often hard to find - a pearl in an oyster shell, a kind word in the heat of the moment.” - F.C. Malby
65. “A Quote from Monty's journal in GOD MUST BE WEEPING. "I felt as anonymous as a grain of sand.” - J.D. Winston
66. “Ann Boleyn...a Renaissance Audrey Hepburn in a little black dress.” - JoAnn Spears
67. “How easy it is to do wrong when there is someone else to blame.” - Jenny Lloyd
68. “Humans will never be in charge of this world, as long as dust and weeds do as they please.” - Nancy B. Brewer
69. “Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England” - Lauren Willig
