Anya Seton Quotes & Sayings

Look, bimba - In my country we have a - how you say? - a proverb. Amare, cantare, mangiare. - Loving, singing, eating - these are God's three gifts. You don' need more. — Anya Seton

It is seldom in life that one knows that a coming event is to be of crucial importance. — Anya Seton

He was all sin and mystery, and Miranda feared the pleasures he offered as she feared the fires of hell. Yet when she succumbed at last, it was not because her body was weak but because her mind was curious. — Anya Seton

God's will usually seemed to coincide with her father's, and against this partnership there was no hope of appeal. — Anya Seton

The house of fame, he thought, is built on melting ice, not steel, and rumbles ever with a sound of rumors, while the goddess of fame is as false and capricious as her sister - Fortune. — Anya Seton

In that hushed hour between midnight and dawn when Morpheus' sable hands touch the rosy finger tips of Aurora and even the fairies are slumbering on their flowery couches, — Anya Seton

Miranda was shocked to hear Nicholas speak of slavery in glowing terms, as an efficient agricultural system. This wasn't the South! Yet as she surveyed her employer's strong dark profile in secret from beneath her long lashes, she was forced to conclude that the role of master suited Nicholas Van Ryn perfectly. Even when she closed her eyes, the impression of cruelty and power remained. But it was herself she saw as the darky slave, stripped of her free will and trembling at her master's approach. — Anya Seton

Out in the world there was all the untried beckoning enchantments:dancing, sensuous music, merriment
and love. — Anya Seton

Her body consented willingly to all that her soul found most abhorrent. As Nicholas had promised, there was a hellish delight in knowing she was damned. — Anya Seton

Mistress Allen was only an ordinary provincial manor lady, bent on nothing more sinister than retrieving money of which she felt defrauded, and in the process either quarreling with or using people. — Anya Seton

Truth is naturally universal ... and shines into many different windows, though many are clouded. — Anya Seton

to be ME, Merewyn. These — Anya Seton

Elizabeth squirmed on the hard wooden bench, and tried to ignore both her sore backside and her rumbling stomach. Why did the minister's sermons last so long? And why did the talk of sin always give her such a hearty appetite? — Anya Seton

There are many trails up the mountain, but in time they all reach the top. — Anya Seton

Yes," Nicholas replied, in a bored voice. "The name is Dutch. Dragonwyck, meaning place of the dragon. It derives from an Indian legend about a flying serpent whose eyes were fire and whose flaming breath withered the corn."
"Heavens!" With a light laugh, Miranda asked her new employer if the red men had sent forth a champion to do battle with the dragon.
The patroon's face was dark, unsmiling. "To appease him the wise men of the tribe sacrificed a pure maiden on the rocky bluff you see above you."
Miranda's laughter died. Something in Nicholas Van Ryn's cruel, handsome features made her imagine herself in the Indian maiden's place. — Anya Seton

Miranda looked up at him through a haze of desire, her will consumed by a fierce crackling heat, just like the dry twigs of the old woman's fire. — Anya Seton

Timing's mighty important. In cooking, in life, in love. If the timing goes wrong, you've got to start over. Do it right. — Anya Seton

As I grew up I got cynical. I'd see Mother enthusiastic and involved with charlatans. Numerologists and astrologists who charged five hundred dollars for a 'reading' which was so vague you could twist the meaning any way you wanted. — Anya Seton

A woman with opinions had better develop a thick skin and a loud voice. — Anya Seton

I only know that from wherever it is that we're going there can be no turning back — Anya Seton

He wasn't strong. He was weak. The weakest thing in the world. A man who lives only for himself — Anya Seton

If I should never see him again - she thought, Blessed Mother, how could I live, and yet it was the fear of seeing him again which had driven her to this desperate haste. The fear that if he were there so near her she — Anya Seton

I am made of cobweb that tears at a touch. But you, Bess, have fiber like the great seines that seldom break no matter their burden,yet if they do they can be mended again and again. — Anya Seton

Cease, daughter!" said the priest at last in a trembling voice. "I cannot grant absolution, no priest could... — Anya Seton

The new Queen was adept at fostering loyalty by hopes alone — Anya Seton

The knights were disgusted. They said that all that fiddle-faddle was well enough for saints, or might have been a thousand years ago, but the Lord Jesus would certainly be the first to command Christians to kill pagans. Rumon announced that he did not think so. — Anya Seton

All brave things do good, even if we don't see it. — Anya Seton

All cruelty and passion must burn away at last to leave behind them only pity. — Anya Seton

How can he be so cruel to me at times - and then like this? she thought. And again her awakening perceptions gave her the answer. He would hurt her himself, take pleasure in doing so, but he would not allow her to be injured by anyone or anything else — Anya Seton

There was no such thing as pure happiness. How many years it took to learn that! Always some dark fretted thing which unbalanced the ease one had laboriously found. — Anya Seton

Her lips were drawn to his like a moth to a flame. — Anya Seton

I have of sorrow so great wound That joy get I never none, Now that I see my lady bright, That I have loved with all my might, Is from me dead, and is agone. Alas, Death, what aileth thee, That thou should'st not have taken me, When thou took my lady sweet, That was so fair, so fresh, so free, So good, that men may well say Of all goodness she had no meet! Right on this same, as I have said Was wholly all my love laid For certes she was, that sweet wife, My suffisaunce, my lust, my life, Mine hap, mine health and all my bless, My world's welfare and my goddess, And I wholly hers, and everydel. — Anya Seton

I am sure that no man asks mercy and grace with true meaning, but if mercy and grace have first been given him. — Anya Seton

The soul ... may have many symbols with which it reaches toward God. — Anya Seton

Life is malleable and the hammer is desire. — Anya Seton

Nay, it's not the Devil been leading her astray. It's books! That girl has been nothing but trouble ever since she learned how to read. — Anya Seton

She had not, as yet, enough introspection to realize that part of his fascination for her had arisen from his unpredictability, and her conception of him as a mysterious being from a superior world who had miraculously condescended to desire her. Nor did she realize how tightly she was enmeshed by his physical attraction, a bondage woven not only from the magnetism of his body but from the very fear and pain he caused her — Anya Seton

Elizabeth knew it was a fast day, but the rumbling in her belly was harder to ignore than the grumbling of the preacher. — Anya Seton

Presently comfort came to him, and he thought the she had always given him of her strength though he had never quite realised it until now.
Glory had passed him by; fame too perhaps would not endure; it might well be that the incalculable goddess would decree ill fame as his due. Perhaps there might not be included in his epitah the one tribute to his knighthood the he knew he deserved "Ii fut toujours bon et loyal chevalier" (He was always good and loyal knight)
But whatever the shadowed years might bring, as long as life should last, he knew that he had here at his side one sure recompense and one abiding loyalty. — Anya Seton