Anne Perry Quotes & Sayings

Who knows the colors someone else sees? — Anne Perry

An enormous gleaming grand piano stood in the center, its legs decently masked. — Anne Perry

I am now working on the second WWI story and find the challenge marvelous. — Anne Perry

One does not have to imagine people perfect in order to love them, Mr. Monk. Love acknowledges faults, weaknesses, even the need now and again for forgiveness where there is no repentance and no understanding of fault. We learn at different speeds. Elissa had many strengths, many virtues, and she was unflinchingly brave. I think she was the bravest woman I ever knew. I am truly sorry she is dead, but I cannot believe Kristian killed her, unless he has changed beyond all recognition from the man I knew. — Anne Perry

Death from hunger happened a hundred yards from death from obesity. — Anne Perry

Here in England there's a glass wall between you and the taste of reality. I don't want to see the last true passion tamed by railways, and men with Bibles telling everyone to cover their bodies." He spread his powerful, elegant hands. "Play your string quintets, by all means, Mr. Narraway, but don't silence the drums simply because you don't understand them. The men who play violins have steel and gunpowder, and the men who play drums don't. — Anne Perry

she had fought hotly against injustice, vanity, and blind, towering stupidity. Occasionally, on the battlefield where death was a reality, she had won. But once back in England, making such arguments was like trying to write in the sand; the weight and complexities of the hierarchy of power erased her efforts like an incoming tide. For — Anne Perry

Charlotte felt a pity for her, because her world was changing, and she did not understand it; it had no place for her. She was like one of Mr. Darwin's dinosaurs, dangerous and ridiculous, beyond its time. — Anne Perry

When you are in love, there is not much that hurts as deeply as rejection. — Anne Perry

Isn't it a lovely ball?" She looked around at the sea of lace and tulle and silk, the blaze of lights, the laughter and the music and the sway and swirl of movement. "I wish everyone could be as happy as I am. — Anne Perry

is not the time you spend with someone, it is what happens in that time. I have known people for years, and yet never met the real person inside, if there is one. Others I have spoken with for only an hour or two, and yet what was said had meaning and honesty that will last forever. — Anne Perry

Maybe right and wrong did not move, but understanding of them did. The wrenching pain of walking the same path, even for a short space, tore away the willingness to judge. — Anne Perry

He stopped. He could see in her face that she had not
even thought of that sort of love. The very idea of a consuming sexual
passion which culminated in murder was something that had not
occurred to her with regard to herself and the general. — Anne Perry

I think it's a terrible thing to write and not enjoy it. It's a sad thing. But of course a lot of people do work because they need to eat. And we all need to eat, but that's not the only reason to work. You couldn't have paid me not to write. — Anne Perry

Some academic pursuit had been a suggestion; she found study absorbing, but the tutorial positions open to women were few, and the restrictions of the life did not appeal to her. She read for pleasure. — Anne Perry

The truth can be very sharp. But it makes a cleaner wound than lies. It will not fester — Anne Perry

Please don't think so lightly of liking someone. It's terribly important. It is a kind of loving, you know, and one that frequently lasts a lot longer than romance. You can fall out of love, as well in. Most of us do, especially if you don't actually like the person as well. It doesn't always grow into love by any means, but sometimes it does. — Anne Perry

It isn't always the value of what is taken that makes us hate. Sometimes it's just the fact that we've been robbed. — Anne Perry

The men who cannot laugh at themselves frighten me even more than those who laugh at everything. — Anne Perry

But the things that Christ taught are still true, of that I am absolutely certain. Meet me at the end of the world when we stand at the abyss ... Honor is still worth living or dying for; no matter how tired or hurt or frightened you are, face forward and seek the light. — Anne Perry

That not what love is - an enlargement of the best and a healing over of the worst? — Anne Perry

The room was one of her favorites, decorated entirely in dark green and white, with white doors and window embrasures, directing one's eye toward the light. The furniture was warm, dark rosewood, upholstered in cream brocade, and there was a bowl of white chrysanthemums on the table. — Anne Perry

Disillusion in an ache that eats into the dreams of goodness, of love, of any value that matters - even to the very belief in life. — Anne Perry

And every moment one expects the sky to fling a barrage from clouds so leaden they hang low across the city roofs and drown the horizon. — Anne Perry

Of course there will be disappointments and the way will not always be as I expected it. But if it seemed easy, then that would be the time to worry that I am on the wrong path. — Anne Perry

The mountains are so beautiful they make me ache inside because the moment I look away I know I shall need to see them again. And I cannot spend the rest of my life standing on the spot starting at shifting sunlight and mist and shadows across the sea. — Anne Perry

She had never been beautiful- she had known that from the start- but she would like to have been loved, above all things. She would have to settle for being liked, perhaps for being trusted, respected. Best of all would have been to have had the courage to stand up for herself and fight for what she believed in. — Anne Perry

He received in essence the same answer from every other shop he tried. No one recognized his description of Hester, and none of them had sold digitalis to any member of the Farraline household, or indeed to anyone not known to them personally. He pursued the other sources of information, the public house, the street peddlers and crossing sweepers, the errand and delivery boys and the news vendors, but all he learned was very general gossip that seemed to serve no purpose. — Anne Perry

She flushed hot to remember how utterly she had given herself to him in that one consuming kiss. All her heart and mind and will had been in it, all the things she could never ever have said to him. — Anne Perry

The great question, is there anything at all which is worth fighting such a war about, with the devastating loss it will bring? I believe yes, there are some freedoms which to sacrifice would be EVEN worse. — Anne Perry

She was wearing a gown of lilac pink threaded with silver and stitched with tiny pearls. It was gorgeous in itself, and of course had the perfect new skirt, but it did not flatter her as a cooler shade would have done. — Anne Perry

Some kinds of beauty did not heal, but hollowed the pain even deeper. — Anne Perry

Sometimes when we are drowning in our own loss we lash out
anger is momentarily easier to cope with. — Anne Perry

Your own gown is most delicately suitable, both to the occasion and to yourself,' to be translated: Your gown is insipid and entirely forgettable. If you wear it on every other occasion this entire season, no one will notice or care. — Anne Perry

Fear does different things to people. Some run away. Some go forward to meet it before it's there. — Anne Perry

It was embarrassing to be obliged to watch grief one cannot help. — Anne Perry

That was the worst truth of all: alone. The word was a kind of death. — Anne Perry

There were parts of Monk she admired greatly: his courage; his strength of will; his intelligence; his loyalty to his beliefs; his passion for justice; his ability to face almost any kind of truth, no matter how dreadful; and the fact that he was never, ever, a hypocrite. — Anne Perry

I didn't love him at all. I grieve because he had one life in which to seek truth and find courage to defend it. He had one life in which to explore his soul, find love, compassion, humility - and he wasted it. Nobody is richer for his having been, nobody is poorer because he is gone. Therefore I grieve. — Anne Perry

God! I hate clever women!" She froze for an instant before the reply was on her lips. "I love clever men!" Her eyes raked him up and down. "It seems we are both to be disappointed. — Anne Perry

We all try to forget what hurts us, it is sometimes the only way we can continue. — Anne Perry

In that moment there was no pretense between them, no lingering vestige of reserve or attempt to escape, no denial. It was final and complete. — Anne Perry

walking slowly along the alleys and through the passages, up and down stairways, deeper into the older part, unchanged in generations. Water dripped off rotting eaves, the stones were slimy, wood creaked, doors hung crooked but fast closed. People moved ahead of him and behind like shadows. One moment it would be strange, frightening and bitterly infectious, the next he thought he recognized something. He would turn a corner and see exactly what he expected, a skyline or a crooked wall exactly as he had known it would be, a door with huge iron studs whose pattern he could have traced with his eyes closed. — Anne Perry

I have already told you, Mr. Monk, I have no idea where my brother is. Not that I would necessarily tell you if I did. Your wife is an excellent nurse. She has rare experience in certain areas that are useful to us, and if she chose to go with him, and has not informed you, then that is her own concern. — Anne Perry

The crossing sweeper, a boy of about eight or nine years, was still busily pushing manure out of the way to make a clean path for any pedestrian who wished to reach the other side. He seemed to be one of those cheerful souls willing to make the best out of any situation. His skimpy trousers stuck to his legs, his coat was too long for him and gaped around the neck, but his enormous cap seemed to keep most of the rain off his head, except for — Anne Perry

You can like people and still betray them, if it was for a cause you believed in passionately enough. You have to betray other people rather than betray yourself
if that's what it comes to. — Anne Perry

We need our marks, our small illusions; few of us can bear to go naked into the world's gaze. And people will kill to keep their clothes. — Anne Perry

Where physical survival was relatively easy, one created rules to make social survival more difficult. — Anne Perry

If we can still surmount what is natural and believe what we wish to believe, in spite of the force of evidence, then for a while at least we are masters of our fate, and we can paint the world we want. — Anne Perry

Their accents must have been hard for her to follow, and their faces, matted under the grime, were haunted by a permanent wariness, a mixture of anger and fear. — Anne Perry

The time will come when we ourselves are disliked or misunderstood, or strangers, different from our judges in race or class or creed, and if their sense of justice depends upon their passion rather than their morality, who is to speak for us then, or defend our right to the truth? — Anne Perry

Time was a peculiarly elastic measurement. It was an empty space, given meaning only by what it contained, and afterwards distorted in memory. — Anne Perry

Americans sometimes say to me that they have no class system themselves. All human beings have class systems. It can be based on a different thing in a different country, but the thing about breeding is, you can't buy it. You can't buy class. — Anne Perry

Death was pain and sickness, and terror of the long, blind, last step. — Anne Perry

A good book changes you,even if it is only to add a little to the furniture of your mind. It will make you laugh and perhaps cry; it should certainly make you think. — Anne Perry

She taught me,' said Ta-thea, 'that if you do not have couragem all other virtues may be lost, because you cannot keep even love if you are not prepared to fight for it, to endure the hurt it brings, and hold on, no matter the cost. — Anne Perry

In working with the wounded at Gallipoli, the lead character comments, Perhaps life was the nightmare and death the awakening. — Anne Perry

The needs of a wife are nothing like that. A close human bond demands a tolerance, an ability to adjust, to moderate one's own actions and to accept criticism, even unreasonable behavior at times, to listen to all kinds of chatter and hear the real message behind the words. Above all, it needs the sharing of self, the dreams and the fears, the laughter and the pain. It means taking down the defenses, knowing that sooner or later you will be hurt. It means tempering ideals and acknowledging the vulnerable and flawed reality of human beings. — Anne Perry

He was a man built to yearn for what he could not have. — Anne Perry

After all, the God she believed in cared for every soul, and what happened to the body left behind mattered not at all. — Anne Perry

ruins." A flush spread up — Anne Perry

A man should be proud of his heritage - not arrogant, as if it made him superior, but happy to own it and live up to the best in its promise. Monk — Anne Perry

To love was to be vulnerable, especially regarding children. One feared for their safety, their happiness, their good health. One felt guilty for their unhappiness or their failures. One was bothered by their dependence, and terrified by their courage. One forgot one's own mistakes, risks, high and absurd dreams and wanted only to protect them from hurt. Then they grew up, married, and too often became almost strangers. They could not imagine that you were also afraid, fallible, could still dream and fall in love. — Anne Perry

But I have learned something good about myself. I can stand up to people who have more power than I do, and fight for what I believe in. — Anne Perry

He was also inordinately fond of cats. — Anne Perry

What's always right?" "Kindness," Pitt answered with certainty. "Keeping your promises. Not giving up just because it gets hard. Owning up to your mistakes, and not blaming other people even if you would get away with it. — Anne Perry

Mystery writers' conventions are usually good, and this one has been excellent and extremely well prepared and thought out in advance. A lot of people have given their time and their skill, and a good deal of wit, and Anchorage has made us extraordinarily welcome. — Anne Perry

She dressed carefully in her favorite shade: pale green, more delicate than the earliest leaves, known as "waters of the Nile," or in the far more sophisticated French "eau de Nil." It was the softest silk, floating when she moved, and the sheen of it caught the light. Naturally it was the latest cut: soft at the shoulder and neck, smooth and slender at the hip. Pearls might have been more appropriate considering the name of the color, but she wore diamonds. She wanted the fire and the sparkle. — Anne Perry

there are none as virtuous as those who have never been asked. — Anne Perry

THE CATER STREET HANGMAN CALLANDER SQUARE PARAGON WALK RESURRECTION ROW BLUEGATE FIELDS RUTLAND PLACE DEATH IN THE DEVIL'S ACRE CARDINGTON CRESCENT SILENCE IN HANOVER CLOSE BETHLEHEM ROAD HIGHGATE RISE BELGRAVE SQUARE FARRIERS' LANE THE HYDE PARK HEADSMAN TRAITORS GATE PENTECOST ALLEY ASHWORTH HALL BRUNSWICK GARDENS BEDFORD SQUARE HALF MOON STREET THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY SOUTHAMPTON ROW SEVEN DIALS LONG SPOON LANE BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS — Anne Perry

I daresay in a way he deserved it, Joseph agreed with reluctance. But which of us can afford what we deserve? I need better, don't you? — Anne Perry

MONK ATE DINNER IN the comfort of the kitchen, with Hester and Scuff. There was a checked cloth on the table, and the yellow china jug full of flowers on the dresser at the side was so big it hid half of the plates kept there. The back door was open to let in the warmth of the summer evening and the faint smell of earth and cut grass. "Why's it matter so much?" Scuff asked. They had been speaking of the new canal at Suez. "Because it will take about five thousand miles off the journey from Britain to the Far East," Hester replied, eager to sharpen his interest in anything connected with schoolwork. — Anne Perry

But easy victories pall after a while. If one always wins, perhaps one is attempting only what is well within one's capabilities - and there lies a kind of death, don't you think? That which does not grow may well be showing the first signs of atrophy. — Anne Perry

Life is frightening," Claudine corrected her. "And beautiful and full of strange and unexpected opportunities. This is one of them. — Anne Perry

I believe in an individual soul which travels through eternity. This life is far from all there is
in fact, it is a minute part, simply an antechamber, a deciding place where we choose the light from the dark, where we come to know what we truly value. — Anne Perry

Friendship was at the core of every relationship that mattered--allies, parent and child, lovers. On its foundation could be built all the other palaces of the heart. — Anne Perry

Hester, recently married herself, and knowing the depth and the sweep of love, ached for Callandra that she sacrificed so much. And yet loving her husband as she did, for all his faults and vulnerabilities, Hester, too, would rather have been alone than accept anyone else. — Anne Perry

Love also means the freedom to follow your own conscience. If you can't be true to yourself, you don't have much left to give anyone else. — Anne Perry

Perhaps it is because my conviction is anyone may believe whatever they wish. Intolerance is a greater offense against God than holding a strange or even inconsistent belief. You have the right to worship what you wish - a pile of stones in your garden - as long as you do not injure others. — Anne Perry

The next few days passed in the customary fashion of Society during the Season. In the mornings they rode in the park, at which Emily had taught herself to be both graceful and skilled. — Anne Perry

The traffic was heavy, carriages, cabs, wagons, carts of every description passing by, splashing the water out of the gutters, wheels hissing on the wet road, horses dripping, sodden hides dark. Drivers sat hunched with collars up and hats down in a futile attempt to keep the cold rain from running down their necks, hands clenched on the reins. — Anne Perry

All the fear in the world is not going to change anything, only rob me of what little I have. — Anne Perry

I was born in London, England, in 1938, a few months before the war, and spent the first years of my life there, although I was evacuated a couple of times for short periods. My schooling was very interrupted, both by frequent moves and by ill health. — Anne Perry

People only tell lies when the truth is disagreeable to them, or frightens them, or to cover sin. — Anne Perry

He was one of the vast numbers of people who cannot imagine themselves into the class or gender, least of all the emotions, of a different person. That is lack of vision or sensitivity, even compassion, but it is not stupidity. — Anne Perry

She chose a very pale teal, halfway between blue and green, with a white silk fichu at the neck. — Anne Perry

And there was something different in his manner as well, a confidence born of intellect, not status or power. Curious how such fractional things, the angle of a head, a furrow between the brows, a hesitation, a measuring as if of a potential threat, could give away a man's origins even before he spoke. — Anne Perry

Standing in this glittering room with the music in the background and the press and hum of scores of people, the clink of glasses, the faint smells of warmth, champagne, stiff material and sometimes of flowers and perfume, — Anne Perry

There is a fear of immorality and disease in our midst. We don't like to be reminded of such things so close to home. We feel guilty that it happens while we are perfectly well and comfortable ourselves. Africa is too far away to be our fault. — Anne Perry

What do I believe? It has been a long journey of discovery. There have been hesitations and errors along the way, and no doubt will be more, because I am still learning, both about myself and about life. — Anne Perry

When we are happy to turn from evil because it is ugly, and causes us distress, then we condone it and become party to its continuance. Little by little, we become as guilty of it as those who commit the act - because we have told them by our silence that it is acceptable. — Anne Perry

We believe world peace is inevitable. — Anne Perry

Had not the outrageous flair of Sybilla, and since George was a natural horseman it seemed almost inevitable that they should more often than not end up side by side, at some distance from the others. William never came, preferring to work at his painting, which was his profession as well as his vocation. He was gifted to the degree that his works were admired by academicians and collected by connoisseurs. Only Eustace affected to find it displeasing that his only son preferred to retire alone to the studio arranged for him in the conservatory and make use of the morning light, rather than parade on horseback for the fashionable world to admire. When they did not ride, they drove in the carriage, went shopping, paid calls upon their more intimate friends, or visited art galleries and exhibitions. — Anne Perry

I am not. I am certain of the things that matter. Kindness and honor are always good. Do not build God in your own image, with your doubts and fears, your need to judge and condemn, your need for safety, and to be right whatever the cost to others, and ultimately to yourself. Let your soul be still, and know that God is never capricious, never cruel and never wrong. It is our understanding that stumbles. Even the cleverest of us are yet children, and the wisest of us know that. — Anne Perry

She could understand being so in love it robbed you of your balance, your judgment of good and evil, but she could not make the leap to acting out the passion or the violence as Elissa had. There was nothing worth winning at the cost of your own being, the soul, the integrity that was the core of who you were. The act of doing such a thing made it impossible for you to hold the good, even if you could grasp it for an instant. — Anne Perry

Oi didn't loike that bloke, Captain. Bastard, 'e were, but Oi s'pose rules is for them yer don't loike. Yer won't 'urt them as yer do. In't that what God's about, been fair to them as rubs your coat all the wrong way? — Anne Perry

I would doubt that virtue, to her, means abstinence. It is far more likely to mean courage, compassion, and the integrity to be brutally honest, first with yourself and then with others, and never to run away just because you are exhausted or afraid. — Anne Perry

Apart from the fact that a lot of them know each other, they were all in livery. Anyone dressed differently would have been as obvious as a horse in a field of cows. — Anne Perry

Sometimes we bring to a struggle or cause the gifts we see most clearly, a courage, a strength, or a charm others have told us we have. But often we find more is asked of us than that, more than we intended or thought we possessed. We are asked to offer that which we thought dearest, to forgive what seemed unpardonable, to face what we feared the most and endure it. Sometimes we have to travel to the last step a path that was not of our own choosing. But I promise you this ... it will lead to a greater joy in the end. The difficulty is that the end is beyond our sight, it is a matter of faith, not of knowledge. — Anne Perry

That is the magical thing about books. You can listen to all the greatest people who have ever lived, anywhere in the world, in any civilization. You can see what is completely different about them, things you never imagined. — Anne Perry