Kearsley Quotes & Sayings

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

I curled my hand against his chest and he covered it with his own, smoothing the hair back from my forehead. "Sleep," he told me. "There are a few more hours of daylight yet, that we may call our own. — 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

Who's Richard?" he asked me calmly. "What?" "You called me Richard just now." My smile was not quite natural. "Did I? I can't imagine why. Sorry." "Old flame, is he?" He clung to it, persistent. "Something like that." I nodded, trying to turn it into a joke. "Why, are you jealous?" Instead of smiling back, as I had expected, he kept his eyes hard on my face for a long moment before answering. "I'm not sure," he said slowly. After another moment the smile came, the one I had been waiting to see. "Come on," he invited, turning his horse towards the tall chimneys of Crofton Hall, "I'll race you back to the stables. — Susanna Kearsley

Oliver ... '
'What?'
'I do like you.'
'But?'
'I just don't want you to think that I'm ... that is, I'm really not looking for ... '
'Hey.' I could hear the faint smile in his voice. 'It's a book, not an etching. — 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

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

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

She'd looked at herself with a sigh, having hoped her reflection would show something more than the road-weary waif who sighed back at her, bright curls disheveled and darkened by dust, pale eyes reddened and circled by shadows of sleeplessness. — 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

I'm sure it was a good house in its time as well, but sometimes what is left behind when something has been lost is even better than the thing that came before. — 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

The recent controversy over the portrayal of Ken Taylor and his embassy staff in the movie 'Argo' brought home to me the great responsibility we writers have when telling stories that involve real people. — Susanna Kearsley

Was there another Celia Sands? — 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

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

Several minutes later, when I passed among the guests to fill their empty cups with wine, I found him standing at my shoulder. "You'll wound my pride," he warned me softly, "ignoring me so." I flicked him a look that was only half-impatient. "I must not speak with you, by my uncle's own instruction." "And when have you obeyed instructions?" He held out his own cup to be filled, his mouth curved in amusement. "Besides, your uncle is engaged at present, with a most serious gentleman. If he should look this way, I've only to duck my head." "You are impossible, my lord." "Ay. And your good humor is lacking, madam. What is it that has so offended you? — 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

It's too easy, you see, to get trapped in the past. The past is very seductive. People always talk about the mists of time, you know, but really it's the present that's in a mist, uncertain. The past is quite clear, and warm, and comforting. That's why people often get stuck there. — Susanna Kearsley

The strongest soldier cannot balance long upon the blade that does divide his honor and his heart, and whatever way he falls, the cut will kill him. — 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

And how is dear Patrick the Protester? What's he on about this week? Saving the dormice? Blocking the bypass?" "Battling the logging industry, actually. Chaining himself to trees. But only at the weekend," I explained. "He doesn't have so much free time, now he's married." "Ah. — Susanna Kearsley

In the years that I worked in museums, first as a summer student and eventually as a curator, one of the primary lessons I learned was this: History is shaped by the people who seek to preserve it. We, of the present, decide what to keep, what to put on display, what to put into storage, and what to discard. — 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

clearing and into the — Susanna Kearsley

While the other women turned back to their talk of Saint-Germain, she took the opportunity to curl into her chair again and read, and so remove herself from all her greater cares and all the people causing them. — Susanna Kearsley

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

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

He brought the horse closer, reining in sharply so his muscled thigh was scarcely a handsbreadth from my face, knowing that the heavy log at my heels prevented any retreat. "I've told you once I would not force you to my will," he reminded me, drawing one finger along my upturned jawline. "When we become lovers, it will be because you desire it as much as I." His finger brushed my lips, the fleeting phantom of a kiss, before he raised his hand to his hat and bid me a polite good day. — Susanna Kearsley

Because everything does make sense, when you look at it from the right angle. All you have to do is find out what that angle is, for whatever it is you want to understand, and bang, the universe becomes a rational place. — 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

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

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

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

The world becomes a wider place, with but a little learning. — Susanna Kearsley

My mother, come to think of it, would have been a welcome sight jut now ... "There are no such things as ghosts," she would have told me, and of course I would have believed her — 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

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

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 years might change our outer selves, but underneath it all we stayed the same, we kept our patterns ... — Susanna Kearsley

After the loss of my sister - my darkest time - I tried to think of the beauty she'd brought to this world and the lives she had touched and the love she had left behind. — 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

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

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

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

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

The moonlight made ghosts of the bed hangings, and cast a spectral pool about my feet — 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

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

It's the pursuit of love and happiness that is the driving force of the romantic novel. — 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

If it hadn't been for Bill Macdonald's book 'The True Intrepid,' I might never have found out about the women who went down to work in secret in New York for our own spymaster Sir William Stephenson in the Second World War. — Susanna Kearsley

There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment. — 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

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

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

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

Well, don't say I didn't warn you. You've never been on the receiving end of one of his tirades." "They can't possibly be any worse than my brother's." "What, that lovely sweet man who sat at my bar telling funny stories all the afternoon? Don't tell me he has a temper?" "Fire and brimstone," I affirmed. "In biblical proportions. — Susanna Kearsley

Always he's looking for something, he's chasing it. Always the neighbour's grass is greener, somewhere else, over the next hill." Her smile was slight. "My grass is green enough. — 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

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

So you are not a coward, after all," he said, and I fancied his tone was faintly pleased. "You would face the devil on his own footing. — Susanna Kearsley

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

Of course," Armand was saying to Simon, "you know that it was an American, like yourself, who nearly ruined the wine-making in France?" "We're Canadians." "But that is the same thing, surely? — 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

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

There are times when our victories have a cost that we did not foresee, when winning brings us loss. — 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

He told me once that the devil dwells in you." "No doubt he does believe it. And what do you think, Mariana Farr?" He did look faintly devilish, smiling down at me with his dark clothes and his dark hair and those glinting eyes the color of the forest that surrounded us, shutting us off together from the wider world. I studied him closely, and shrugged in my turn. "I am no simple chit in hanging sleeves, my lord. I have eyes of my own to judge with, and I see no horns. — Susanna Kearsley

Mary could have told him that it was no use, that she had called her father back and it had made no difference, that if something once desired to leave you it was lost already and forever. — 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

I was born in the city of Brantford, Ontario, Canada - but by the time I'd left high school, I'd moved seven times with my family, my father's engineering work taking us to places as far-flung as Bay City, Texas, and Wolnae-Ri in South Korea. — 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

Readers in general are not fond of dialect, and I don't blame them. I've read books myself that I've had to put down because sounding out every speech gave me a headache. — 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

Whatever time we have," he said, "it will be time enough. — Susanna Kearsley

When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down, Creep home and take your place there, The spent and maimed among: God grant you find one face there You loved when all was young. — Susanna Kearsley

That's how you have to read this book, you see. You wade through a few sentences, then stop and think about them, then wade through a few more. — 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 clung to him while, overhead, the clouds burst forth a final brilliant streak of golden red, as if the gates of heaven themselves had briefly opened, and closed again. My trembling stilled; the wind seemed to fall silent, and some weight I didn't fully understand, a melancholy ages old, was lifted from my sobbing chest and drifted like an answered prayer into the darkness. — Susanna Kearsley

Such is the endless dilemma of dialect. Not every reader will ever agree with the way that I handle it, no matter how hard I work to keep everything readable. But again it's that balance I have to maintain between keeping it easy and keeping it real, and I know that I'll never please everyone. — 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