Quotes & Sayings About Historical Fiction
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Top Historical Fiction Quotes
I been running up a bill with the devil ever since, and now he's come to collect on the debt. — Steven B. Weissman
Horeb bent over me and ran his hand down my neck, not stopping when his fingers reached my chest.
I jerked backward. "What are you doing?"
His eyes were black and intense. "A little taste before the wedding, Jayden? — Kimberley Griffiths Little
On this night of the Harvest Moon. They tossed bones into the "Bone Fire" and asked the yellow moon to shine its protection over them. (Today we call it a "Bonfire") — Nancy B. Brewer
I reckon it's true what they say that good begets good and bad begets bad. The evil men do lives on after them, but what good they done gets buried with their bones. — Lisa Kaye Presley
Two are better than one,because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lif' up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. — John Steinbeck
To survive one tragedy was to learn you cannot survive them all, and this knowledge was both a freedom and a great loss. — Chris Womersley
There is not only one measure of beauty, Lanore. Everyone adores the red rose, and yet it is a common sort of beauty. You are like a golden rose, a rare bloom but no less lovely. — Alma Katsu
This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray."
"Go astray?"
"Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. — Rick Riordan
I am German, yes, but I am not a Nazi. There is a difference, and one day I hope you understand that. — Caroline Leech
She [Susanna] realized she was still hugging the wall. Pride propelled her two steps forward. As she advanced, something bleated at her, as though chastising her for trespassing. She stopped midstep and peered at it. "Did you know there's a lamb in here?"
"Never mind it. That's dinner."
She gave it a smile and a friendly pat. "Hullo, Dinner. Aren't you a sweet thing."
"It's not his name, it's his ... function. — Tessa Dare
Why were people always asking me about things in my past, the things I wanted to keep hidden? But then, why did my life have to be full of details I didn't want to share with others? — Sarah Holman
I studied how to use the clothes washer. The handy instructions on the lid helped; so did the box of suds. It instructed me to separate the whites from the coloreds. Laundry will be the last American institution to desegregate. — Huston Piner
Romantic fiction, in the broader sense, can be any novel that has a love story somewhere in it. It can be a mystery or a historical novel, as long as it has this very strong romantic thread running through it. — Susanna Kearsley
I found out after reading quite a lot of it that it is not rated very high. He has a very descriptive way of writing but also lengthy. May not want to finish!!!!! This was his 1sr and only try ast Historical Fiction! — Wilkie Collins
This isn't food." Bram picked up a lavender-iced cake between thumb and finger and stared at it. "This is ... edible ornamentation. — Tessa Dare
I am a survivor. But I am not unique of the people that survived the great late war. We all have our stories to tell. But for most of us the hardened corners have soften with the passage of time. — Nancy B. Brewer
You'll likely always have some reason or other to hang onto that girl. You just want her cause she was married to your son, and I understand that, he was a friend to me like a brother, near the only family I ever knew, and I miss him almost as much as you. But I need me a woman. — Samuel Snoek-Brown
The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation. — Tana French
The tall, thin serious man strode in, his dark cloak billowing so dramatically it threatened to extinguish the lamp flame with its draught. He advanced like a malevolent shadow consuming the dim orange light, filling the room with a presence almost more than human. — Gregory Figg
About Anna Faktorovich's "Romances of George Sand": "What a read! Not lacking in action and very imaginative. — Belinda Jack
I enjoy writing historical fiction because it allows me to live more lives than just this one. — Karen A. Chase
Children, Hadley thinks to herself, children are more civilised than this gang on the sauce. — Naomi Wood
She gently bit his bottom lip, his ear. Worked her way down his body until she reached the inside of his thigh, then bit hard, breaking the skin, drawing blood. "My mark," she said, looking up at him. "Now you'll go back to your wife with my mark. — Dominique Wilson
Humans will never be in charge of this world, as long as dust and weeds do as they please. — Nancy B. Brewer
Just before he passed behind the hedge at the end of the drive, he turned to look back at Stoke Morrow and caught me spying on him. His shining eyes were so cruel, and before I could close the curtain, I saw the flash of an awful grin on his face. It was a grin that said he knew I'd come around. Sooner or later, I'd fall in line. — Adam McOmber
But the living must fear death, or they would not struggle to stay alive. — Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
The lines in the corners of her eyes spoke of years of wisdom, as a tree with the number of rings increasing with each passing year. She was a small frame of a woman with piercing eyes that suggested that they knew you, understood you even. — F.C. Malby
One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own. — Emma Donoghue
Fiction has consisted either of placing imaginary characters in a true story, which is the Iliad, or of presenting the story of an individual as having a general historical value, which is the Odyssey. — Raymond Queneau
While researching my first book, I discovered so many fascinating tidbits that I wanted to share them with readers to remind them that while the book was fiction, the situations were based on historical realities - some of which were pretty hard to believe. — Julie Klassen
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Fill'd with death, ya pens'll hang ya. — Ron A Swan
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
No man should be asked to live with so much sadness, and with so little promise of relief. — Naomi Wood
Some things can be recovered. Some things can be restored. But some lost things, we seek forever. — Margaret George
It is dark and there are bad creatures in these woods."
"Yes, there are ... — Katlyn Charlesworth
Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo
which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead. — Neal Stephenson
When one is busy, as she was in Donegal, life whistles by. One struggles to keep up with oneself. It is vital, when one slows down, to be conscious of small things, small moments. To take pains. — Orna Ross
After all, that's why we read historical fiction-to be transported to another time, and to be astonished at ancient people's lives and traditions, just as they would probably be astonished at ours. — Michelle Moran
It's finding out where we came from that helps guide us to where we are going. — Mona Rodriguez
Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there. — Bernie Mcgill
Women come more easily to that wisdom which ancient peoples, and all wild peoples even now, think the only wisdom. — Orna Ross
Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life."
Patricia Briggs. — Demetra Angelis Foustanellas
Brick walls towered over her. Decrepit staircases crowded about her. Nothing had changed. The line there, the lessons there, the rape there. Shouldn't the place be crimson with blood and black with shame? — Sarah Sundin
Words had failed us that night, and I'd welcomed the silence. Words had escaped me the next morning as well but in a different way, when I came to realize that I was married to a fisherman for the rest of my days."--Abigail Whimble, Return to the Outer Banks House — Diann Ducharme
The following is a fictionalized and utterly false account of the events that most definitely did not happen on June 9-10, 1967. And yet, while all the characters in this story are little green men and women running around inside my head, the events that served as inspiration, the historical facts, as it were, must be considered no less than a sibling of the tale contained in these pages: the story I didn't write, but could have written--the book this could have been, but isn't. — Montague Kobbe
Your love of glory must conquer your will to survive; or why fight at all? Why not be a smith, a brewer, a wool merchant? Why are you in the contest, if not to win, and if not to win, then to die? — Hilary Mantel
It seemed ironic to her that women were considered far too meek for the morbidity of war, and yet a child could give their life in a battle they did not even understand. — Katlyn Charlesworth
So we rode through a broken gate in a broken wall into a broken town, and it was dusk, and the day's rain had finally lifted, and a shaft of red sunlight came from beneath the western clouds as we entered the ruined town. We rode straight into the light of that swollen sun which reflected from my helm that had the silver wolf on its crest, and it shone from my mail coat and from my arm rings and from the hilts of my two swords, and someone shouted that I was the king. I rode Witnere, who tossed his great head and pawed at the ground, and I was dressed in my shining war glory. — Bernard Cornwell
He speaks in that strange sports talk, telling me about the start of the new season and asks if I follow baseball.
No. I really don't.
He assures me if I stay in town long enough I will become a baseball fan. It's a requirement of living in St. Louis. Everyone is a Cardinal's fan.
"Loyal," he tells me. St. Louis is a loyal town. — Gwenn Wright
There are so many stories to tell in the worlds of science fiction, the worlds of fantasy and horror that to confine yourself to even doing historical revisionist fiction, whatever you want to call it - mash-ups, gimmick lit, absurdist fiction - I don't know if I want to do that anymore. — Seth Grahame-Smith
When you live in my house, you learn to be fine with whatever you come across. It's the only way to stay sane in insanity. — Katlyn Charlesworth
In her orchard the trees had been born from deaths; they marked and grew from the remains of the children that had passed through her. — Nadifa Mohamed
I can read a newspaper article, and it might trigger something else in my mind. I often like to choose in historical fiction things or subject matter I don't feel have been given a fair shake in history. — Kathryn Lasky
A woman has but two loves in life: the one who broke her heart and the one she spends the rest of her life with.
- Carolyn Chase, former Broadcast Journalist and heroine Kate Theodore's mother — Liz Newman
Positive thoughts (expectations) can change perspective, transform behaviors, and attract good fortune. — Donna M. McDine
There is an arch supported by four vast columns. Etched over hundreds and hundreds of yards of stone, furlongs of stone, there are names:
"Who are these, these? The men who died in this battle?"
"No. The lost, the ones they did not find. The others are in the cemeteries."
"These are just the ... the unfound." When she could speak again. From the whole war?"
The man shook his head. "Just these fields."
Elizabeth sat on the steps. "No one told me. My God no one told me, — Sebastian Faulks
Jealousy is nothing but a fear of being abandoned — Heidi Heilig
George dutifully dusted the marks from the expensive rug and retired to the kitchen to await a grave and disapproving Collins, wishing with all of his boyish heart that he had applied for the stables. Cleaning stalls had to be beneficial exercise, and surely one must become accustomed to the smells...eventually. — Sarah Brazytis
Antonio's will was cursed. Not once, but twice. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
At the edge of the still, dark pool that was the sea, at the brimming edge of freedom where no boat was to be seen, she spoke the first words of the few they were to exchange. 'I cannot swim. You know it?"
In the dark she saw the flash of his smile. 'Trust me.' And he drew her with a strong hand until the green phosphorescence beaded her ankles, and deeper, and deeper, until the thick milk-warm water, almost unfelt, was up to her waist. She heard him swear feelingly to himself as the salt water searched out, discovered his burns. Then with a rustle she saw his pale head sink back into the quiet sea and at the same moment she was gripped and drawn after him, her face to the stars, drawn through the tides with the sea lapping like her lost hair at her cheeks, the drive of his body beneath her pulling them both from the shore. They were launched on the long journey towards the slim shape, black against glossy black, which was the brigantine, with Thompson on board. — Dorothy Dunnett
It is inner duty, not outer achievement, that wins peace. — Orna Ross
I'm not a great reader of historical fiction; it's not my favourite genre. — Mal Peet
You are both daring and unscrupulous, and you think fast. I have been looking for a person with those particular characteristics. Also I noticed you speak Babylonian. — Eloise Jarvis McGraw
History shows us a window into our past. Historical fiction can take us by the and and lead us into that world. — Judith Geary
It is amazing what a woman can do if only she ignores what men tell her she can't. — Carol K. Carr
I had turned to leave and he had called after me. "Miss Maria, I kin no other woman who could be wearing men's trousers and be dripping such as ye are and look quite so lovely. It's a right shame your mother is marrying you off to that great sot!"
I had turned to call back to him, "I doubt very much we will have to worry about that after today! — Gwenn Wright
From the front row of the balcony, I look out over the Uptown Cinema. The red velvet seats are emptying, the credits scrolling up the screen. Ginger Rogers married a Nazi, but Cary Grant got her out of it. Their ship is sailing to America; sun burns away the fog and the wind blows free. Now they are gone and I am coming back to reality, breathing a harsher air. It is how I always feel when a movie ends. — Kermit Roosevelt III
My wishing star glowed slightly and winked back at me. I could almost hear its voice, tinkling like wind chimes and church bells, reassuring me that everything would return to normal. — Erica Sehyun Song
Mogadishu the beautiful - your white-turbaned mosques, baskets of anchovies as bright as mercury, jazz and shuffling feet, bird-boned servant girls with slow smiles, the blind white of your homes against the sapphire blue of the ocean - you are missed, her dreams seem to say. — Nadifa Mohamed
I am here, Bella. Let me cherish you as you deserve.
- Sebastian Stanhope — Diana Quincy
The United States media is advocating for the country to go to battle with Spain and take over Cuba and Puerto Rico to gain advantage over the Atlantic," said Manuel. "They have swayed public opinion. I would not be surprised that the countries go into war, and we are caught in the middle. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
I thought the force of my wanting must wake ye, surely. And then ye did come ... " He stopped, looking at me with eyes gone soft and dark. "Christ, Claire, ye were so beautiful, there on the stair, wi' your hair down and the shadow of your body with the light behind ye ... ." He shook his head slowly. "I did think I should die, if I didna have ye," he said softly. "Just then. — Diana Gabaldon
Marriage, after all, is only a little detail in life. — Orna Ross
Perhaps you have visited my grave and flowers left, but did you hear me cry out to you! — Nancy B. Brewer
The wiry man scratched his head, looked the two inquisitors up and down and cleared his throat softly. "We must be quick." He turned to go, pulling his cloak over his head and shuffling through the door into the moonlight. The two inquisitors moved with impossible silence behind, floating across the straw-covered floor like the cats on the walls outside the hut. The cats froze at the disturbance before scurrying noiselessly into the shadows as the three silhouettes crossed the ten yards of grass before the blackness of the forest swallowed them. No fires flickered at this time, when the full moon was highest in the cloudless summer sky, and the three were the only waking souls in the hamlet. — Gregory Figg
Prisoners!" Finan shouted, and I suspected he was shouting at me because I had so blatantly ignored my own insistence that we take men captive. — Bernard Cornwell
Megan's deception is another hook on which I can hang my conscience. — Jenny Lloyd
My nation, as all nations, is becoming a land without peace, without thought, without mind, Madam Abbess. We are suffocating our spirits in commercial and material things. This is not envy," said Mr. Konishi earnestly. "I am a rich man, with much business, so I have succeeded in all these things, but I know that they are empty. — Rumer Godden
I often tell people who want to write historical fiction: don't read all that much about the period you're writing about; read things from the period that you're writing about. There's a tendency to stoke up on a lot of biography and a lot of history, and not to actually get back to the original sources. — Thomas Mallon
Wouldn't you like to be my lord Duke of Exeter? Come on, Dom. Say something."
"You have lost your mind."
"Say something less insulting. — Laura Andersen
How men fear the chaos of the world, I thought, and the yawning eternity hereafter. So we build patterns to explain its terrible mysteries and reassure ourselves we are safe in this world and beyond. — C.J. Sansom
All good things originate with the Creator God, he'd been taught, and the Song of Life was no exception. — Sandi Layne
The enlightened rational man is not unlike the title character in Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni": a likeable rake, intelligent and enterprising, free to do as he pleases, outmaneuvering his honorable, tradition-bound adversaries at every step. One cannot begrudge him his liberty and pursuit of happiness, but looming large above him is his fatal flaw: his mind's maturity does not match his freedom. His pursuits are frivolous, tawdry and destructive. And this, we maintain, is the historical moment of our techno-scientific world: like some allegorical alien race in a science fiction story, we have placed broad freedoms and enormous power in the hands of a flawed creature: ourselves. Empirical reason has brought us here, and by its light we will have to find a way forward. — Danko Antolovic
I had a few people ask me if I might one day write my own autobiography. I just told them, 'It's already being written; through my books. — T.S. Wieland
My anger mounted. "What about your son and me? What about us? How can you even think of leaving me alone here with our baby boy? Telemachus needs his father. What's going to happen to us if you leave? Who will help me raise him? Who will take care of us? You know as well as I do some of the men around here are nothing but a bunch of scoundrels. Mark my words, Odysseus. The second you're gone, they'll swarm in here like bees around honey. They'll take over the place. I won't be able to do a thing to stop them. — Tamara Agha-Jaffar
Sonetimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself. — Sarah Sundin
Do you plan on marrying Charles?"
She shook her head.
"Good. I wouldn't want to shoot him, but I would."
... Finding Promise — Scarlett Dunn
Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England — Lauren Willig
The stars twinkled high above and reflected onto the cold window. I blew on the frosty glass and watched my breath fog up. I traced my initials across the cold glass, the condensation trickling down the pane. — Erica Sehyun Song
It's still funny for me to think of myself as someone who writes historical fiction because it seems like a really fusty, musty term, and yet it clearly applies. — Susan Choi
Historical fiction is not history. You're blending real events and actual historical personages with characters of your own creation. — George R R Martin
Dead man shouldn't have no fears. Makes his passing easier. — Samuel Snoek-Brown
Even the most egregious captive state, bound and gagged on her damp bunk, felt eerily familiar to her. With nothing to do but lie there and think of things, she reflected that captivity took many different forms. A woman under the domination of her father or husband was as much a prisoner as a hostage on a boat. She had merely traded one form of servitude for another. — Susan Wiggs
The prophecy has come true! You put the sea salt in the soup...You are the one! — PanOrpheus
The characters tell their story - I am merely the tool used to record it — Marti Melville
In ancient Ireland the soul had but to stretch out its arms to fill them with beauty. Now all manner of ugliness besets the world. — Orna Ross