Laurens Quotes & Sayings

Readers really want to come back to an author; they do not want a one-book wonder. That is all very well, but to be career author, you have to be prepared to write one really good book and then write another really good book and keep feeding your readers. You build your audience over a long time. — Stephanie Laurens

I suspect it was ... the old story of the implacable necessity of a man having honour within his own natural spirit. A man cannot live and temper his mettle without such honour. There is deep in him a sense of the heroic quest; and our modern way of life, with its emphasis on security, its distrust of the unknown and its elevation of abstract collective values has repressed the heroic impulse to a degree that may produce the most dangerous consequences. — Laurens Van Der Post

The mystery of creation was always between two, in an awareness that there was always both a 'thou'and and 'I'. — Laurens Van Der Post

My bravery however was the effect of assurance for could I have believed the current report, I should have fled as fast as any man, no man can possibly have a greater reluctance to an intimacy with Sir William Howe than my Self. — Henry Laurens

Real people are never central characters in my works. — Stephanie Laurens

I'm a Cynster
I've been raised to acquire, defend, and protect. My family is the core of my existence
without a family, without children, I'd have nothing to protect, no reason to acquire. — Stephanie Laurens

Come on-I'll see you back to your room and the estimable Martha."
She put her hand in his and let him draw her to her feet.
"Tomorrow ... don't worry," he murmured, as he ushered her back through the darker side of the snug. "I'll be waiting in Carlisle to fall in behind the coach when you go past." Through the dimness he met her eyes. "I won't lose you."
Her lips softly curved. "I didn't imagine you would. — Stephanie Laurens

He'd slumped beside her. " You can't fear losing me half as much as I fear losing you." It had been a grudging admission; he'd thought her already asleep. — Stephanie Laurens

Modern man has lost the sense of wonder
about the unknown and he treats it as
an enemy. — Laurens Van Der Post

Creativity and love come from the same source. — Laurens Van Der Post

Sane women did not marry tyrants. — Stephanie Laurens

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right. — Laurens Van Der Post

...a journey into the unknown in the world without produces a movement towards new and unknown areas in our world within. — Laurens Van Der Post

Just because I'm not forever by your side doesn't mean that's not precisely where I want to be. — Stephanie Laurens

Finally, gentleman, from the considerations above mentioned, as I cannot consistently with my own honor, nor with utility to my country, considering the manner in which Business is transacted here, remain any longer in this chair, I now resign it. — Henry Laurens

I hoped you would know without needing to be told." His eyes held hers; his chest swelled as he drew in a steadying breath. "God-and half the ton-know I love you." He searched her eyes, then added, his voice deepening, "Unreservedly, without restraint, far more completely, deeply, madly than I suspect is at all wise. — Stephanie Laurens

Honoria ground her teeth. "What on earth am I to do with you?"
Devil's features hardened, "Marry me." His voice was a frustrated growl. "The rest will follow naturally. — Stephanie Laurens

[The] Japanese were a people in a profound, inverse, reverse, or if I preferred it, even perverse sense, more in love with death than living. — Sir Laurens Van Der Post

What do you ask from Judd in exchange for giving sanctuary to the kids?'
His pale eyes iced over. 'Judd is a fully trained Psy assassin with experience in covert wet work. I'd be a fool if I didn't utilize his skills.' She choked back a cry. 'How can you ask that of him?' An alpha looked after his own.
He didn't destroy them. But maybe Hawke didn't consider the Laurens his own. After all, and for reasons she'd never known, he hated the Psy as much as her brothers did.
His face gentled, an unexpected softening of harsh masculine lines. Closing the distance between them, he cupped her cheek. 'He is who and what he is, Brenna. If you want something different, you shouldn't be with him.'
'He's the only one I want to be with.'
'Then accept his beast like you do your own. — Nalini Singh

Ninety percent of everything we know has been passed along through story. — Laurens Van Der Post

Afterward, describing his division's accomplishments to Washington, Lafayette commended "Colonel Hamilton, whose well known talents and gallantry were on this occasion most conspicuous and serviceable." He wrote, "Our obligations to him, to Colonel Gimat, to Colonel Laurens, and to each and all the officers and men, are above expression. Not one gun was fired . . . and, owing to the conduct of the commanders and the bravery of the men, the redoubt was stormed with uncommon rapidity. — Sarah Vowell

You may well be right, and disaster may well come, I had told him. But for me it will always be a point of honour to go on working to prevent disaster, if only to make certain it is the right kind of disaster life needs when it does ultimately come. — Laurens Van Der Post

Organized religion is making Christianity political rather than making politics Christian. — Laurens Van Der Post

With only sixty men to hold off four hundred Americans, the British commander of the redoubt, a Major Campbell, surrendered to Laurens. Afterward, when an unhinged captain from New Hampshire threatened Campbell with his bayonet, Hamilton stepped between them, because rules were rules. — Sarah Vowell

I shall hold myself particularly answerable to my constituents for my present conduct, and in general to all my fellow Citizens throughout these States, when properly questioned. — Henry Laurens

You can't let your heart go places it's not supposed to go. — Jennifer Laurens

Think of music like you think of eating. There's meat and potatoes, very hearty basic comfort food that sticks to your bones and nourishes you. Then there's fluff. Chips, dessert, junk food. Stuff that won't make you healthy but you prefer because it's quick and there. — Jennifer Laurens

She drew a swift breath, and let it out on the words: I love you - more than I've ever loved anyone. I love you so profoundly it goes beyond all reason. And I could never let you go - let you be taken from me - that would be the same as letting life itself go, because you are life to me. — Stephanie Laurens

I hear people everywhere saying that the trouble with our time is that we have no great leaders any more. If we look back we always had them. But to me it seems there is a very profound reason why there are no great leaders any more. It is because they are no longer needed. The message is clear. You no longer want to be led from the outside. Every man must be his own leader. He now knows enough not to follow other people. He must follow the light that's within himself, and through this light he will create a new community. — Laurens Van Der Post

Just her luck to be abducted by kidnappers who could think. — Stephanie Laurens

After the death of John Laurens, Hamilton shut off some compartment of his emotions and never reopened it. — Ron Chernow

We'll find your treasure. Shifting his head, he pressed — Stephanie Laurens

Two hundred and fifty years is a long time ... Do you have any concept of what happens to emotional bonds over such a period? .... No. Your life experience cannot possibly encompass what it is to love the same person for two hundred and fifty years. In the end, if you endure, if you beat the traps of boredom and complacency, in the end what you are left with is not love. It is almost veneration. How then to match that respect, that veneration with the sordid desires of whatever flesh you are wearing at the time? I tell you, you cannot."
- Laurens Bancroft, "the client — Richard K. Morgan

Love simply is - it asks no permissions. Acceptance is all love asks, the only demand it makes, but it is an absolute one. You can either admit it to your heart or refuse it, but there's no other option. — Stephanie Laurens

Then her ladyship, overwhelming in bronze bombazine, regally glided away. Cedric smiled — Stephanie Laurens

Of all of men's inborn dispositions there is none more heroic than love. Love will fight no-love every inch of the way. — Laurens Van Der Post

We have known for a long time that Prince Charles' empty sails are so rigged as to be swelled by any passing waft or breeze of crankiness and cant. He fell for the fake anthropologist Laurens van der Post. He was bowled over by the charms of homeopathic medicine. He has been believably reported as saying that plants do better if you talk to them in a soothing and encouraging way. — Christopher Hitchens

Love truly is the most transformative power in heaven and on earth. — Stephanie Laurens

On the night that the Second World war was declared, there were crowds in the street. It was a summer's night and there was a blackout. On every side you heard people crying: 'Look at the moon!' The moon had been there every minute of their lives and they'd never seen it. — Laurens Van Der Post

It's the not-yet in the now, the taste of the fruit that does not-yet exist, hanging the blossom on the bough. — Laurens Van Der Post

I truly believe that as a novelist, you cannot adequately describe the weather in England - the light, the dampness, the bitterness, the summer softness, and so on - without having experienced it. — Stephanie Laurens

Times may change; Cynsters never do — Stephanie Laurens

The spirit of man is nomad, his blood bedouin, and love is the aboriginal tracker on the faded desert spoor of his lost self; and so I came to live my life not by conscious plan or prearranged design but as someone following the flight of a bird. — Laurens Van Der Post

My heart only ever had one thought, one want. One need. Despite all, in spite of all ... All my heart has ever wanted is you. — Stephanie Laurens

Wasn't the butler who looked out but Marcus Cynster. — Stephanie Laurens

As the natural coherence of the world vanishes, there's a guilt that grows great and angry in the basement of our beings. — Laurens Van Der Post

There is a way in which the collective knowledge of mankind expresses itself, for the finite individual, through mere daily living ... a way in which life itself is sheer knowing. — Laurens Van Der Post

I usually sit down at 8 A.M. and work through to 7 P.M., with breaks that total no more than an hour and a half. — Stephanie Laurens

We invest the moment with meanings it may not necessarily have. We constrain and limit the potential outcomes by imposing external expectations, by imagining and anticipating how others will see things, what they might say...when in reality none of that might matter." ~Jeremy William Carling — Stephanie Laurens

Frowning, she looked up. "You can't want to ravish me every time we meet."
Oh, yes, he could. Demon gritted his teeth ... — Stephanie Laurens

You cannot take the life of your times further than you have taken yourself. — Laurens Van Der Post

I have a request to make,my lord."
He held her gaze; she could see him trying to decide what she might ask, but eventually he surrendered."And that is?"
"Take me to your bed. — Stephanie Laurens

Man is everywhere dangerously unaware of himself. We really know nothing about the nature of man, and unless we hurry to get to know ourselves we are in dangerous trouble. — Sir Laurens Van Der Post

That is the trouble, everybody is giving everything in the world a piece of their minds. Whereas what we want is not a piece of somebody's mind, even the best mind, so much as an open heart and an open spirit. — Laurens Van Der Post

And that's my point," Richard stated. "Do you remember when you stood there, in a ballroom or whatever, and watched her stalk off - and wondered what the hell was going on? — Stephanie Laurens

[The official prosecutors] ... were more vengeful on behalf of our injuries than I myself could ever be. — Sir Laurens Van Der Post

We may not be able to stop and undo the hard old wrongs of the great world outside, but through you and me no evil shall come either in the unknown where you are going, or in this imperfect and haunted dimension of awareness through which I move. — Laurens Van Der Post

if death might otherwise come in a year given — Derek Laurens

She searched his face. "Why did you do this
go to all this trouble, indulge in what I'm sure will prove a shockingly hideous expense?
He returned he gaze steadily "You like music."
It was that simple
he let her read the truth in his eyes. Then she shivered. He reached for the shawl she'd left over her chair and held it up. She hesitated, then turned so he could drape it over her shoulders. Releasing the fine silk, he closed his hands about her shoulders; leaning closer, he murmured, "As with other pleasures, my reward is your delight. — Stephanie Laurens

Often I have found that the one thing that can save is the thing which appears most to threaten ... one has to go down into what one most fears and in that process ... comes a saving flicker of light and energy that, even if it does not produce the courage of a hero, at any rate enables a trembling mortal to take one step further. — Laurens Van Der Post

The only death the spirit recognizes is the denial of birth to that which strives to be born: those realities in ourselves that we have not allowed to live. The real ghost is a strange, persistent beggar at a narrow door asking to be born; asking, again and again, for admission at the gateway of our lives. Such ghosts I had, and thus, beyond all reason, I continued to be haunted. — Laurens Van Der Post

Love is not something you can impute to another." ~Leonora — Stephanie Laurens

his shirt and hauled the fine linen up, and off. — Stephanie Laurens

It appeared that his sister, usually an irresistible force, had finally met a sufficiently immovable object. — Stephanie Laurens

What woman wouldn't want to be pursued in a flattering, non-physically threatening way by a gorgeous, fascinating, intelligent man? Being wanted, desired, being the focus of a man's aspirations, his goal, his grail - the one companion he must have to live contentedly - is one of the most universal and fundamental of female wishes. — Stephanie Laurens

He family motto, after all, is 'To Have and To Hold'. We were always a warrior breed, but we don't fight solely for lands and material wealth. There's an understanding, drummed into all of us from our earliest years, that success-true success-means capturing and holding , something more. That something more is the future-to excel is very well, but one needs to excel and survive. To seize lands is well and good, but we want to hold them for all time. Which means creating and building a family-defending the family that is, and creating the next generation. Because it's the next generation that's our future. Without securing that future, material success is no real success at all. — Stephanie Laurens

Overall, I adhere to the one guiding rule any author writing historical fiction should follow: whatever you describe has to be possible. It may not be common, obvious, or even all that probable, but it absolutely has to be possible. — Stephanie Laurens

We have a mighty task before us. The earth needs our assistance. — Laurens Van Der Post

Most books set in England between 1800 and 1840 have a 'Regency' feel. The reason that era is so useful for romance authors stems from the wide-ranging social changes that were occurring over that time, and the parallels, or echoes, those create with our time and the lives of our readers. — Stephanie Laurens

Man is never alone. Acknowledged or unacknowledged, that which dreams through him is always there to support him from within. — Laurens Van Der Post

The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two "hungers". There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning ...
There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.
There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you're happy or unhappy. You are content - you are not alone in your Spirit - you belong. — Laurens Van Der Post

Authors I've longed to write like - but realize I actually can't even begin to - include Poe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kafka, Daniil Kharms, Witold Gombrowicz, Emily Dickinson, Robert Walser, Barbara Comyns, Ntozake Shange, Camille Laurens, Zbigniew Herbert, and Jose Saramago. — Helen Oyeyemi

The educating of the parents is really the education of the child children tend to live what is unlived in the parents, so it is vital that parents should be aware of their inferior, their dark side, and should press on getting to know themselves. — Laurens Van Der Post

You also," he said, lowering his voice, "haven't yet
thanked me for saving you from sitting in the flower bed."
She didn't even look up. "It was entirely your fault that I nearly did. If you hadn't sneaked up on me, I wouldn't have been in any danger of landing in the weeds." She glanced briefly at him, a touch of color in her cheeks. "A gentleman would have coughed or something."
Vane trapped her gaze, and smiled - a slow, Cynster smile. "Ah," he murmured, his voice very low. He shifted fractionally closer. "But, you see, I'm not a gentleman. I'm a Cynster." As if letting her into some secret, he gently informed her: "We're conquerors - not gentlemen. — Stephanie Laurens

Abstinence. It didn't even sound comfortable — Stephanie Laurens

They were also invincibly arrogant, a characteristic fueled by the fact that they were, by and large, as talented as they thought themselves, a situation which engendered in less-favored mortals a certain reluctant respect. Not that Cynsters demanded respect - they simply took it as their due — Stephanie Laurens

I shall have less cause to regret the carrying my intended purpose into effect, foreseeing that you may immediately fill with advantage, the vacancy which will presently happen. — Henry Laurens

A baby is a small member of the home that makes love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, the bank roll smaller, the home happier, the clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for. - Laurens van der Post and Jane Taylor — David Jeremiah

A man who declares his heart too early will leave you wondering whether he truly meant it." ~Catriona — Stephanie Laurens

My brand of persuasion doesn't work well at a distance. — Stephanie Laurens

I think that we Americans, at least in the Southern col[onie]s, cannot contend with a good grace for liberty until we shall have enfranchised our slaves, Laurens told a friend right before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.64 — Ron Chernow

You are riding for a fall, Your Grace,"
"I'll be riding you before Christmas. — Stephanie Laurens

The age of leaders has come and gone. You must be your own leader now. You must contain the spirit of our time in your own life and your own nature. You must really explore, as you've never explored before, what human nature is like. — Laurens Van Der Post

I'm going to have a nice little nap in this sun. Don't think to wander off-I'll know if you move. A very light sleeper, I am.
Heather stared, speechless, at the woman who slept so soundly every night that she'd never heard Heather slip out of their room, or back in. Heather managed not to shake her head in disbelief, just in case Martha was watching through her lashes. — Stephanie Laurens

People say you have someone important in your life when you can reconnect with them easily. When picking up with them right where you left off, even after being apart for a long time, comes naturally. — Paige Laurens

You do not know, and the readers cannot tell you, what they might like until they have it. It is one of those things that particularly if you want to be the next wave, well the next wave is not already on the bestseller lists. The next wave is in somebody's head. — Stephanie Laurens

Have faith. Believe.
She did.
She understood now what fate asked of her-to have the strength to hold on regardless. To acknowledge that, even if he died, even if he left her, she would still love him until the day she died.
Love didn't care. Love simply was.
Love was unconditional.
Love was for ever more.
She had faith in love. She believed in love.
She would love him in life and in death.
And if the chance came again she would convince him of that.
As the night closed around her, she closed her eyes and prayed. — Stephanie Laurens

No imagination has yet been great enough to invent improvements to the truth. Truth, however terrible, carried within itself its own strange comfort for the misery it is so often compelled to inflict on behalf of life. Sooner or later it is not pretence but the truth which gives back with both hands what it has taken away with one. Indeed, unaided and alone it will pick up the fragments of the reality it has shattered and piece them together again in the shape of more immediate meaning than the one in which they had been previously contained. — Laurens Van Der Post

And remembered - all he'd nearly forgotten, all her wild responses had driven from his mind. This was one seduction he had to, needed to, manage
perfectly - this time, there was meaning beyond the act. Seducing Patience Debbington was too important to rush - conquering her senses, her body,
was only the first step. He didn't want her just once - he wanted her for a lifetime. — Stephanie Laurens

I'm not a gentleman, I'm a nobleman, a distinction I suspect you understand very well. — Stephanie Laurens

I'm a voracious reader - I always have a book on the go and read for at least half an hour, usually more, every night. — Stephanie Laurens

In a profound sense every man has two halves to his being; he is not one person so much as two persons trying to act in unison. I believe that in the heart of each human being there is something which I can only describe as a child of darkness who is equal and complementary to the more obvious child of light. — Laurens Van Der Post

At what age did men mature? If ever? And at what age did a woman cease having to deal with men acting as if they owned the right to lustfully indulge in a woman, be it with his eyes or hands?
There was more to a woman than a womb and breasts. — Stephanie Laurens

You like my kisses - and I like kissing you. Why deny ourselves such innocent pleasure? — Stephanie Laurens

In my works, the geography map-wise is accurate - roads are where I say they are, and go from this town to the next as I say they do, and yes, it would take a curricle that long to travel that distance. — Stephanie Laurens

Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one's eternal peril. — Laurens Van Der Post

I am always late. If I arrived early, my hostess would faint. — Stephanie Laurens

Love wasn't a happening one decided on
to indulge or not, to partake or not. To feel or not. When it came, when it struck, the only decision left to make was how to respond
whether you embraced it, took it in, and made it a part of you, or whether you turned your back and let it die. — Stephanie Laurens

You, me
we're not the same, but we
our lives
somehow fit together. — Stephanie Laurens

Innocence isn't something you should discard like an old shoe. It has a physical value - a passionate value - all its own." His frown deepening, he kept his gaze fixed on his leader's ears. "Innocence shouldn't be tarnished, it shouldn't be crushed. It should be made to bloom. I know." Those last two words were as much realization as assurance. "Getting innocence to bloom takes time, takes care and attention and expertise." His voice deepened. "It takes passion and desire, commitment and devotion to coax innocence from bud to bloom, to encourage it to unfurl into full flower without a single petal bruised. — Stephanie Laurens