Susanna Kearsley Quotes & Sayings

Some things weren't meant to live in cages. — Susanna Kearsley

Watching him walk off was very nearly as absorbing as observing his approach. He walked as all men ought to walk, with a decided swagger to his shoulders. — Susanna Kearsley

Men who watch, and say little, very often are much wiser than the men they serve. — Susanna Kearsley

Better to find out certain things by living them, not by reading them in a book. — Susanna Kearsley

Some men prayed for life and some for death, in languages as varied as their uniforms - the Dutch and Germans and the Scots and French and English tangled side by side, for all men looked alike when they were dying. — Susanna Kearsley

David McClelland was changed by that day more than most men. — Susanna Kearsley

Try looking with your soul, instead. The soul sees what truly matters. — Susanna Kearsley

I've told you once I would not force you to my will ... When we become lovers, it will be because you desire as much as I
-Richard — Susanna Kearsley

Daddy could be rather difficult, at times, and he hadn't yet found any young man who measured up to his exacting standards. The best thing, I'd found, was simply not to introduce them to him. It saved a lot of bother, all around. — Susanna Kearsley

Ye'll never best your fears until ye face them — Susanna Kearsley

I would argue 'tis never the place, but the people one shares it with who are the cause of our happiest memories. That is why we find that having lived them once, we never can recapture them. — Susanna Kearsley

You hold your life cheaply, mistress," the voice said dryly. "He's a bad-tempered devil, and his affections are often false." "Nonsense," I said. "He's a lovely brute. — Susanna Kearsley

I told ye I'd come back to ye. — Susanna Kearsley

When you say that you write romantic fiction, there are a lot of people who have an image in their mind of the 'bodice ripper.' It's the one term that most romantic fiction writers absolutely hate because it has no bearing on what people are writing. — Susanna Kearsley

But what you bring back with you in the end, he said, might not be what you started out in search of to begin with — Susanna Kearsley

No matter what the bards may say, there's no romance in dying for a man. — Susanna Kearsley

A walk through the storage facility of the community museum where I worked might easily have convinced you that people in the past wore only wedding dresses, carried silver candlesticks, and played with porcelain dolls. — Susanna Kearsley

The firebird drops a feather, was his summary, and if you're fool enough to pick it up and chase the bird itself, you're in for trouble. — Susanna Kearsley

D'you think I'd let a little thing like the grave come between us?
-Richard — Susanna Kearsley

I spent five years of my childhood in Port Elgin and came back to spend another five years of my young adulthood there as well, including the years in which I was first published. — Susanna Kearsley

You should have bought the bracelet, you know," he told me, in a contemplative tone. "The stones would match your eyes." Pride kept me from saying that the trinket had been too expensive for my purse. I took a small step backwards and he let his hand fall, his expression unconcerned. "I bought this, instead." I held up my book to show him. "You can read, then." "My father was a scrivener. He viewed illiteracy as an unpardonable sin." "You were fortunate. I cannot imagine you would find much to read in your uncle's house." I smiled, in spite of myself. "Very little." "Then you must come visit me at the Hall. I have a good library. You would be welcome to borrow anything you wanted. — Susanna Kearsley

People didn't just wear wedding dresses in the past. They also wore plain cotton shifts beneath them. As pretty as the dresses might be, and as lovely as they might look on display, if a museum doesn't hang the shifts beside them or acknowledge that the shifts existed, that exhibit's incomplete. — Susanna Kearsley

Was there another Celia Sands? — Susanna Kearsley

I'm looking for a man. — Susanna Kearsley

As a former waitress myself, I know firsthand how a simple smile from someone can improve your day and how a single harsh word can destroy it. Being courteous and thoughtful costs you nothing and can sometimes pay you dividends in unexpected ways. — Susanna Kearsley

So, you see, my heart is held forever by this place," she said. "I cannot leave. — Susanna Kearsley

Take you my ring," he repeated, "and keep it with you." His tone was stubborn, and so I obeyed, sliding the great ring from his outstretched finger. The ring was cold, as his hands were cold, and I held it tenderly in my palm, blinking back the rising wetness of my eyes. "Remember that hawk, Mariana Farr," he told me gently, "and seek me not with your eyes, but with your soul. The soul sees what truly matters. — Susanna Kearsley

Watching, I could feel again the stirrings of my characters - the faint, as yet inaudible, suggestion of their voices, and their movements close around me, in the way someone can sense another's presence in a darkened room. I didn't need to shut my eyes. They were already fixed, not truly seeing, on the window glass, in that strange writer's trance that stole upon me when my characters began to speak, and I tried hard to listen. — Susanna Kearsley

My pleasure," he assured me, propping one shoulder against the doorjamb and folding his arms across his chest. "Rather nice change from my normal daily routine. I don't often have comely young maidens throwing themselves at my feet."
"Yes, well," I said, coloring, "that won't happen again."
He smiled down at me, and after a final handshake I made my departure. I had almost reached the end of the neatly edged walk when he spoke.
"What a pity," he said, but I don't think I was meant to hear it. — Susanna Kearsley

For if there was no winter, we could never hope for spring. — Susanna Kearsley

Tis action moves the world ... [in] the game of chess, mind that: ye cannot leave your men to stand unmoving on the board and hope to win. A soldier must first step upon the battlefield if does mean to cross it. — Susanna Kearsley

Brantford was the fixed point of my universe, growing up. Both sets of grandparents lived there, with various cousins and uncles and aunts, and no matter how far we'd moved off, we came back there for regular visits. In a way no other houses have ever been, my grandparents' houses were 'home,' and the sale of the last of those houses was hard. — Susanna Kearsley

A l'amour, aux plaisir, aux boccage," he quoted softly, then turned the words to English: "In love, in pleasure, in the woods, spend your beautiful days ... " I stared up at him, dumbly, my heart rising in my throat. I was not aware of the precise moment when we stopped dancing, when he turned those deep, forest-colored eyes on mine and traced the outline of my face with a delicate touch. "These are your beautiful days, Mariana Farr," he said gently, and then his shoulders blocked the sunlight as he lowered his head to mine and kissed me. — Susanna Kearsley

I once walked through an exhibit in a large American museum that displayed First Nations artifacts in old dioramas, with mannequins that hadn't been changed since the 19th century. — Susanna Kearsley

I'd always been puzzled when books about people with Asperger's claimed that we didn't have empathy. True, I might have trouble sometimes guessing how another person felt, but sadness was an obvious emotion and an easy one to spot most of the time. My problem wasn't that I didn't understand their feelings, only that I didn't have a clue how to respond to them. I never knew the proper thing to do or say. I wasn't good at comforting. He — Susanna Kearsley

It winna dee ye ony good, it disna ring. The salt fae the sea ruins the wiring, fast as I fix it. Besides,' said the man, as he came up to join us, 'I'm nae in the hoose tae be hearin ye, am I? — Susanna Kearsley

Into the air. There was love here - not perfect, but strong, — Susanna Kearsley

You want to watch him, Julia," he told me. "He may look harmless enough, but appearances can be deceiving." Geoff grinned. "That's slander, that is. You know I always behave like a perfect gentleman." "Right then, Sir Galahad," Iain said dryly. — Susanna Kearsley

The face is a plain one," said Hugh, "but the workings inside will not fail ye. — Susanna Kearsley

The sky was wide and inviting, and the grass was cool and sweetly refreshing under my bare feet as I walked across the undulating field towards the river. It was a short walk, only a mile or so, but I did not hurry it, letting my soul soak up the glorious sensation of freedom and lightness. — Susanna Kearsley

A grieving person's like a person treading in deep water
if they've nothing to hold on to, they lose hope. They slide right under. — Susanna Kearsley

And what was the second reason?" I asked him. "The what?" "Your second reason for dropping by to see me," I prompted, and his face cleared. "Oh. I wanted to ask if you would make me a cup of coffee." He smiled happily. "Iain's Scotch is terribly strong, you know, and he's generous in the pouring of it, and I was far too proud to tell him when I'd had enough. He has a habit of reminding me how Englishmen can't hold their liquor. But I don't think I'd be able to walk home right now," he confessed, "without falling into a ditch along the way. — Susanna Kearsley

How much of our lives is consumed with meeting people, attracting people, keeping people and missing people? Usually, when everything is resolved romantically in one of my books, the characters stop talking in my head, and I stop telling the story. — Susanna Kearsley

Is it your wish that I should leave you now?" "Why would you think that of me?" His eyebrows rose, the vulnerability gone. "You are not a servant, Mariana, to be thus ordered from my sight." "No," I admitted, looking down at my feet, "I am not a servant. I am a mistress. A minor difference, I'll grant you." His eyes were steady on my face. "You are my love," he corrected me, softly, "and there is no shame in that. Do you wish this afternoon undone?" I raised my head. "No," I told him honestly. "I will not force you to my bed," he said. "I do not want a frightened woman, nor a coy one, but one who gives me love because she wills it so. If I make no promises, it is because the world is an uncertain place, and words matter little. But if you doubt the honor of my love, come," he stretched his hand towards me, palm upward, "let me renew my pledge. — Susanna Kearsley

Exactly. And her son, King James the Sixth, who afterwards became King James the First of England also, when the English Queen Elizabeth the First died with no children to succeed her." "And King James the Sixth," I asked. "Was he a Catholic or a Protestant?" "Protestant. As was his son, Charles the First. — Susanna Kearsley

These are your beautiful days, Julia Beckett, he promised softly. — Susanna Kearsley

Rob was always a gentleman. — Susanna Kearsley

You're not messing about in Iain's garden, are you?" I felt irrationally guilty. "I just pulled a few weeds." "I warned her," Vivien said, in self-defense, "but she didn't listen." "Well," Geoff gave me a faintly pitying look, "what's done is done. We'll make sure you have a proper funeral, at any rate. — Susanna Kearsley

In my book 'The Winter Sea,' set north of Aberdeen, I couldn't just ignore the fact some people there - especially the people in the past - would speak the Doric. — Susanna Kearsley

I'd never met a redhead yet who didn't have the same allure - a sort of blend of vibrant energy and freshness that made those of us with brown hair feel ridiculously dull. — Susanna Kearsley

You couldn't have picked a better time," I assured him warmly. "It'll do wonders for my image. By teatime it'll be all over town that I'm related to a vicar." "Or that you're having an affair with one." Tom grinned. "Village people have terribly suspicious minds, you know. — Susanna Kearsley

Ever try to hold a butterfly? It can't be done. You damage them, he said. 'As gentle as you try to be, you take the powder from their wings and they won't ever fly the same. It's kinder to let them go. — Susanna Kearsley

...a man with eyes the color of the winter sea. — Susanna Kearsley

Hope rarely enters into it. 'Tis action moves the world. — Susanna Kearsley

Ye'll learn more of a man if ye look at his face when he's looking at somebody else, than ye'll learn any other way, but,' he advised her, 'ye have to keep silent to do it — Susanna Kearsley

And has the truth become the property of those who can afford it?' The — Susanna Kearsley

The secret to keeping one's actions concealed from the enemy is, in most cases, to learn what he thinks you will do, and then seem to be doing it, for that is what he'll believe — Susanna Kearsley

It was a thing intangible, yet clearly felt - the sense that time was moving round him, past him, leaving him untouched. — Susanna Kearsley

Then, stop worrying so much what the rest of us think; just get on the damned donkey and ride it. — Susanna Kearsley

Hindsight, I thought, was like a punishment, remorseless in its clarity and painfully unable to change what had gone before. — Susanna Kearsley

1. "Mistress Jamieson" tells Mary when they meet: "My mother likes to say some people choose the path of danger on their own, for it is how the Lord did make them, and they never will be changed." Do you agree? Was it more true in the past than today? Did Mary purposely choose a path of danger? Who else? 2. The author has people in her own life with Asperger's syndrome who helped her with Sara's character. What was it like to be in the point of view of a person with Asperger's syndrome? Did you have any preconceived ideas about Asperger's? Did they change? 3. Journeys (physical and otherwise) are a prevalent theme in many of Susanna Kearsley's books. What journeys can you identify in this book, past and present? How do they differ for female and male characters? 4. Mary takes "Mistress Jamieson" as a role model. "She — Susanna Kearsley

I do promise that you will survive this. Faith, my own heart is so scattered round the country now, I marvel that it has the strength each day to keep me standing. But it does,' she said, and drawing in a steady breath she pulled back just enough to raise a hand to wipe Sophia's tears. 'It does. And so will yours.'
'How can you be so sure?'
'Because it is a heart, and knows no better. — Susanna Kearsley

Don't talk foolish," I said. His voice was coming from very far away, and it frightened me. "'Tis only talk," he assured me, grinning. "And I'd think it unlikely that the priests would welcome a heathen like myself into their number. Besides, my ghost will be busy enough, watching over you." "Do you mean to haunt me, then?" "Ay." His eyes were very warm on mine. "You'll not be rid of me so easily. — Susanna Kearsley

I tasted the salt on my own lips, and the bitter taste of blood on his. It was a desperate kiss, the sort of kiss that marks a lovers' parting, a kiss of sorrow and regret and a kind of blind and wordless promise. I would have risen up when it was finished, but he held me close, his hand stroking my hair. "I'll hurt your chest," I protested, but he shook his head. "I am past pain," he lied, "and I've always had a fancy to die in my lover's arms. 'Tis most romantic. — Susanna Kearsley

Knowing that the battle will not end the way he wishes does not make it any less worthwhile the fight. — Susanna Kearsley

To sail beyond the sunset ... I'd thought that beautiful, once. But now I knew it was a wasted effort, chasing sunsets. There was nothing on the other side. — Susanna Kearsley

Because it is in giving of ourselves and our possessions that we best please God; by actions, not words. And all men do deserve a chance to earn God's grace. — Susanna Kearsley

I can have my day carefully planned, but if someone wakes up with a cough or a sniffle, then everything changes. Thinking quickly and adapting without grumbling are essential skills to learn, in my opinion. — Susanna Kearsley

Well, it was over now, I thought. Time everyone forgot, forgave, let be. — Susanna Kearsley

When I'm dealing with the 18th century, as I do in 'The Firebird,' the difficulty isn't only finding what a woman did, it's finding her at all. Most of the sources I'm dealing with - letters and memoirs and written reports of the day - have been written by men. — Susanna Kearsley

The columbine and iris bowed down to make way for bolder sprays of red valerian, and a mingled profusion of clustered Canterbury bells and sweet william, pale blues and pinks intertwined, danced at the feet of more stately spears of deep-purple foxglove and monkshood. — Susanna Kearsley

Could become like that, I thought suddenly. If I did not guard against it, I too could become like the doomed birds in the dovecote. Like lovely, dead-eyed Caroline, with her hair turning white from worry at twenty-five. For if the dovecote was a trap, then so was Greywethers, and my uncle's hand held the rope that could pull shut the door and bar my flight. — Susanna Kearsley

Let the devil bar my way, I will come back to ye. — Susanna Kearsley

The best way to show an emotion is not through a character's words, but their smallest expressions - to take what an actor would visually do and try putting that down on the page for the reader to 'see.' — Susanna Kearsley

If it is true that men have souls that do survive them," he went on, ignoring me, "and if those souls are born again to life, you need not worry that my ghost will haunt you. I'll haunt you in the flesh, instead. — Susanna Kearsley

He fields might fall to fallow and the birds might stop their song awhile; the growing things might die and lie in silence under snow, while through it all the cold sea wore its face of storms and death and sunken hopes ... and yet unseen beneath the waves a warmer current ran that, in its time, would bring the spring. — Susanna Kearsley

Edmund had obviously never yet experienced the speed with which news traveled round the docklands. "Is there anyone who does not know him?" "All — Susanna Kearsley

I had met death before, in different forms
I knew quite well the pattern of my grieving. First came shock, and then tears, and then a bitter anger, followed by a softer grief that time would wear away. — Susanna Kearsley

My children are as at home in the Port Elgin library as I used to be, and they've sat in the cinema seats where I sat with their aunt every Saturday afternoon, watching the matinee movies. — Susanna Kearsley

Life is always uncertain,'he said with a shrug. 'We cannot let the fear of what might happen stop us living as we choose. — Susanna Kearsley

My kingdom for a camera," he said, his gray eyes crinkling in amusement. "You ought to see your face." I closed my gaping mouth and shook my head, amazed. "How on earth did you know I was there?" I asked him. Iain braced both fists in the small of his back and stretched. "I'm no clairvoyant," he assured me. "I saw you hopping the fence. Thought you were taking a devil of a time getting here. Besides," he added, pointing at the clear outline of our shadows on the shed wall, "if you've a mind to sneak up on a Scotsman, you'd best do it when the sun's not at your back. — Susanna Kearsley

clearing and into the — Susanna Kearsley

Faith, you worry about the propriety of having one lover. At Court you would be considered uncommonly prim." "One lover is all I need," I said, snuggling deeper into his chest. "'Tis all you'll have." "And when my uncle promises me in marriage to some merchant?" I shifted my head, curious. "What will happen then?" "I'd not allow it. I'd marry you myself." His arm tightened. "I will not lose you. — Susanna Kearsley

It's the only thing I begrudge the rich," I said, as I followed him back down the damp-smelling staircase to the ground floor.
"What's that?"
"Their ability to buy books that the rest of us can never hope to own. — Susanna Kearsley

One of the more interesting challenges I face when doing research for my novels is to trace the lives of women who are vital to the narrative and try my best to give them back their voices. — Susanna Kearsley

Well." Vivien smiled, swinging her legs. "At least when Iain starts yelling, his accent gets thicker, so you usually can't understand a word he's ... No, don't pull that one," she stopped me suddenly. "That one I do recognize. It's some sort of a daisy, or something. — Susanna Kearsley

Even Austrian landladies recognise the hand of destiny at work. — Susanna Kearsley

Children teach you worries that you never knew you had, — Susanna Kearsley

He was drifting, I could hear it in his voice. He always fell asleep as easily as some great lazing cat, he only had to close his eyes and moments later he'd be gone, while my own mind kept on whirring round with scattered thoughts and images. — Susanna Kearsley

When I meet a wind I cannot fight , I can do naught but set my sails to let it take me where it will. — Susanna Kearsley

Tis the curse of a woman of influence that she must always be reckoned unvirtuous. — Susanna Kearsley

But life, if nothing else, had taught her promises weren't always to be counted on, and what appeared at first a shining chance might end in bitter disappointment. — Susanna Kearsley

It mattered not that no one else would bear that moment witness nor remember it, for if the future could not know them, neither could the past confine them, and the choice was always theirs to make, the tale their own to finish, — Susanna Kearsley

And does he like blondes, as well?'
Rob laughed. I had forgotten just how great a laugh he had. 'No, he prefers, dark haired women. You've nothing to fear from the Sentinel, Nicola. — Susanna Kearsley

...he raised a hand to touch my face, a touch of promise, warm and sure, and as I struggled to smile back at him he kissed me. It felt so very right, so beautiful; tears pricked behind my lashes as life flowed through all my hollow limbs, and I lost all sense of place and time. It might have been a minute or an hour... — Susanna Kearsley

Damn and blast!" "Curates can't use language like that," I reminded my brother, and he grinned involuntarily. "I'm getting it out of my system," was his excuse. — Susanna Kearsley

The man they'd come to see was up and standing at the window with his back to them, so that only Sophia saw his squared stance and his shoulders and the brown hair fastened back above the collar of his shirt. He wore no coat, just breeks and boots, and in the fine white shirt he stood there pale and like a ghost, the only thing of light in that dull room.
He spoke again, not looking round, his voice grown hoarser from the illness. 'Did you ye see her? Was she well?'
'She will be now,' the colnel gently said ...
Sophia could not move from where she stood. Could not believe it.
Then he turned, a ghost no longer, but a breathing man. A living man, whose shadowed eyes grew brighter in the grip of hard emotion as he left the window and in two strides crossed to fold her in his arms ... — Susanna Kearsley

I grew up in a very small town where nearly everyone knew each other, and odds were that whatever you said about a person would make it back to them by nightfall - something incomers learned, to their frequent embarrassment. — Susanna Kearsley

We rarely see the things we don't expect to see. — Susanna Kearsley

I have seen and really liked the varied movie adaptations of the book, but 'Little Women' has a sprawling, richly tangled story that needs time and space to weave its magic. — Susanna Kearsley