Philippa Quotes & Sayings

I don't want to help, I want to hinder. I adore your hair, I like to see it loose. — Philippa Gregory

I will go to war should there ever be a cause I think worth dying for
and not before. — Philippa Gregory

I like to do the research of history and the creativity of writing fiction. I am creating this thing which I think is twice as difficult as writing either history or fiction. — Philippa Gregory

For Harry Potter I have all the time in the world. — Philippa Gregory

So he left her, because in his heart he feared that she was a woman with a divided nature - and he did not realize that all women are creatures of divided nature. — Philippa Gregory

Whether you plan or whether you flow in order to be creative probably isn't the point. The point is to keep practicing to maintain neural pathways and to establish new ones by learning new skills. — Philippa Perry

A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even if she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family. — Philippa Gregory

One's lover is one's partner in observing and understanding the world. Marriage is a place where joint narratives are composed. If the lover is a liar then all your joint observations are unreliable. You will have to start all over again. — Philippa Gregory

The smell of him and the touch of his skin, I feel my desire for him rise again and we move together. — Philippa Gregory

Never see them again. Surely, a couple so young, so — Philippa Gregory

I felt his hardness and I suddenly understood-an older girl would have understood long before-that this was the currency of desire. He was my betrothed. he desired me. I desired him. All I had to do was tell him the truth. — Philippa Gregory

The common people only see weakness where there is greatness of spirit. — Philippa Gregory

I love reading and I love thinking - the reason that I love my books so much is that in order to write them I have to read and to think for years at a time about the same period of time. — Philippa Gregory

Personally, I don't think that having a water goddess for an ancestress is a guarantee of freedom against seasickness, nor come to that, shipwreck. — Philippa Gregory

Hidden from History: 300 Years of Women's Oppression and the Fight Against It, London: Pluto Press, 1973. — Philippa Gregory

I knew now what my earlier passion for Harry had hidden from me. That although I had bedded him as a free woman I was as bound as if I were the slave. For it was not a free choice. I had wanted him because he was the Squire, not for himself ... And it was no free choice, because I could not choose to say "No." My safety and security on the land meant I had to keep my special, costly hold on its owner. I paid him rent as surely as the tenants who came to my round rent table with their coins tied up in a scrap of cloth. When I lay on my back, or strode round the room threatening him with every imaginable, ridiculous torment, I was paying my dues. And the knowledge galled me. — Philippa Gregory

We are not ordered by God to judge each other. We are not even ordered by him to consider another person's sin. We are ordered by God to let Him consider it, to let Him be judge. — Philippa Gregory

They were all wrong and the dreams and seeings were right. And there was nothing wrong with me. I felt my shoulders go back and my head come up, and I smiled at the doctor and promised to be prompt at his house in the morning; and as I smiled I sensed all the familiar strength - the strength which I named as the Lacey strength, Beatrice strength - come back to me, and I looked him in his pale blue eyes and thought to myself: you and I are enemies while you try to change me, for I will never change. — Philippa Gregory

They are a couple in love, and anyone but a fool would see it is simply that, nothing more- and certainly nothing less. — Philippa Gregory

I would play ball with Catherine, and hide and seek: Not a very challenging game in an open meadow, but she was still at the age where she believed that if she shut her eyes and buried her head under a shawl then she could not be seen. — Philippa Gregory

When we had to survive on our wits, gather and kill our food from scratch and be more at the mercy of our environment than we are today, we probably had enough challenge to keep our brains healthy. — Philippa Perry

I saw his glance flick over me, like a horse trader assessing the value of a filly. Whenever I looked up the king's eyes were on me, whenever I looked away I was conscious of his stare still on my face. When — Philippa Gregory

You will have to reconcile yourself, as I do, as Isabel does, to being the defeated. — Philippa Gregory

Stars in the night,' he said. 'Something something something something, some delight — Philippa Gregory

I thought then that we would all die in the darkness and solitude. I thought that an executioner would come for us silently one night. I thought I might wake briefly with the weight of a pillow on my face. I thought that I would never see sunshine again. I was a young woman then, and I thought that sorrow as deep as mine could only lead to death. I was grieving for my father and frightened by the absence of my brothers, and I thought that soon I would die too. I — Philippa Gregory

I would not care whether people thought I was special, if my life was truly special. It would not mater to me that people could see me as pious, if I could truly live as a woman scholar of piety. I want to be what I seem to be. I act as if I am specially holy, a special girl; but this is what I really want to be. I really do. — Philippa Gregory

He bares his yellow teeth in a smile at me. 'Everyone is always our enemy,' he says. 'But right now, we are winning. — Philippa Gregory

A woman who loved him would have to learn obedience, and I was not yet ready to be an obedient wife. — Philippa Gregory

However much I might please Henry, he was still her boy - her lovely indulged spoilt golden boy. He might summon me or any other girl to his room, without disturbing the constant steady affection between them which had sprung from her ability, long ago, to love this man who was more foolish, more selfish, and less of a prince than she was a princess. — Philippa Gregory

If you remain silent, the shame is yours. If you speak out the shame is his. Shout out as loud as you can — Philippa Sklaar

The White Queen in many ways it is representative of the sort of drama that I'm talking about. The books by Philippa Gregory were best sellers and they specifically told the story of history from the point of view of women. — Colin Callender

Jerott?' said Lymond. 'What are you not saying?' His eyes, as the orderly cavalcade paced through the muddy streets, had not left that forceful aquiline face since they met. And Jerott, Philippa saw with disbelief, flushed. For a moment longer, the strict blue eyes studied him; and then Lymond laughed. 'She's an eighteen-year-old blonde of doubtful virginity? Or more frightful still, an eighteen-year-old blonde of unstained innocence? I shall control my impulses, Jerott, I promise you. I'm only going to throw her out if she looks like a troublemaker, or else so bloody helpless that we'll lose lives looking after her. Not everyone,' he said, in a wheeling turn which caught Philippa straining cravenly to hear, 'is one of Nature's Marco Polos like the Somerville offspring. — Dorothy Dunnett

But I want to be loved. I have always been loved. I want my husband to love me with a passion, like in a troubadour tale, like a knight. — Philippa Gregory

I say nothing, not one word, from beginning to end, and neither does he. If it were lawful for a woman to hate her husband, I would hate him as a rapist. — Philippa Gregory

I had meant my promise to George. I had said that I was, before anything else, a Boleyn and a Howard through and through; but now, sitting in th shadowy room, looking out over the gray slates of the city, and up at the dark clouds leaning on the roof of Westminster Palace, I suddenly realized that George was wrong, and that my family was wrong, and that I had been wrong
for all my life. I was not a Howard before anything else. Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love, I didn't want the rewards for which Anne had surrendered her youth. I didn' want the arid glamour of George's life, I wanted the heat and the sweat and the passion of a man that I could love and trust. And I wanted to give myself to him: not for advantage, but for desire. — Philippa Gregory

Margaret ... you must know that you could never change your own life. You are a girl: girls have no choice. You could never even choose your own husband: you are of the royal family. A husband would always have been chosen for you. It is forbidden for one of royal blood to marry their own choice. You know this too. And finally, you are of the House of Lancaster. You cannot choose your allegiance. You have to serve your house, your family, and your husband. I have allowed you to dream, and I have allowed you to read, but the time has come to put aside silly stories and silly dreams and do your duty. — Philippa Gregory

If it has to be done at all, it must be done with grace. — Philippa Gregory

Some of us are born to a solitary life. — Philippa Gregory

You -have- to love your monster. — Philippa Dowding

If it means something to you,then take it to heart. If it means nothing, it means nothing, let it go. — Philippa Gregory

Daniel, I did not knowwhat I wanted when I was agirl. And then I was a fool in every sense of the word. And now that I am a woman grown, I know that I love you and I want this son of yours, and our children who will come. I have seen a woman break her heart for love: my Queen Mary. I have seen another break her soul to avoid it: my Princess Elizabeth. I don't want to be Mary or Elizabeth, I want to be me: Hannah Verde Carpenter."
"And we shall live somewhere that we can follow our belifs without danger," he insisted.
"Yes," I said, "in the England that Elizabeth will make. — Philippa Gregory

And, echoing Jerott, 'So why in hell have you come?' Philippa's gaze, bright and owlish and obstinate, held his to the end.

'To look after the baby,' she answered. And disconcertingly, after a second's blank pause, Francis Crawford flung back his damp head and laughed. — Dorothy Dunnett

When he saw her, the water lapping on her scales, head down in the bath he had built especially for her, thinking that she would like to wash - not to revert to fish - he had that instant revulsion that some men feel when they understand, perhaps for the first time, that a woman is truly "other." She is not a boy though she is weak like a boy, nor a fool though he has seen her tremble with feeling like a fool. She is not a villain in her capacity to hold a grudge, nor a saint in her flashes of generosity. She is not any of these male qualities. She is a woman. A thing quite different to a man. What he saw was a half fish, but what frightened him to his soul was the being which was a woman. — Philippa Gregory

can be made? Since we have made an — Philippa Gregory

To stop us reading forbidden books they will have to burn every manuscript. But to stop us thinking forbidden thoughts they will have to cut off our heads. — Philippa Gregory

I feel as if I can think only when I see the words flowing from the nib of my quill, that my thoughts make sense only when they are black ink on cream paper. I love the sensation of a thought in my head and the vision of the word on the page. — Philippa Gregory

What a test of love it is, when the beloved is less than perfect. — Philippa Gregory

This child could not command a pet dove.
Harsh but true, lol! — Philippa Gregory

I have to tell you, you have to know: I have loved you honorably as a knight should do his lady, and I have loved you passionately as a man might a woman; and now, before I leave you, I want to tell you that I love you, I love you - — Philippa Gregory

But this world is changing. Perhaps by the time you are old enough to marry the world will hear a woman's voice. Perhaps she will not have to swear to obey in her wedding vows. Perhaps one day a woman will be allowed to both love and think. — Philippa Gregory

A parcel
taken from one place to another, handed from one owner to another, unwrapped and bundled up at will
is all that I am. A vessel, for the bearing of sons, for one nobleman or another: it hardly matters who. — Philippa Gregory

He is a sodomite, and my sister is a whore, and perhaps a poisoner, and I am a whore. My uncle has been the falsest of friends, my father a time-server, my mother - God knows - some even say she had the king before the two of us! All of this you knew or you could have deduced. Now tell me, am I good enough for you? For I knew that you were a nobody and I came to find you all the same. If you want to rise to be a somebody in this court you will get blood or shit on your hands. I have had to learn this through a hard apprenticeship since I was a little girl. You can learn it now if you have the stomach." William — Philippa Gregory

But Anne, do you love him?" I asked curiously.
The curve of her hood hid all but the corner of her smile. "I am a fool to own it, but I am in a fever for his touch. — Philippa Gregory

We stood for a moment, handclasped in the warm sunshine, and I thought, like a lovesick girl: This is heaven. — Philippa Gregory

Lion-hearted; her tremors braced with virtue, Philippa trotted on. — Dorothy Dunnett

...and as she stood on the Ashford platform waiting for the small train to come in, she seemed already separated from the people around her. Tomorrow I shall not be among you anymore; not of you but mysteriously still with you, thought Philippa. As Lady Abbess of Brede had said, "People think we renounce the world. We don't. We renounce its ways but we are still very much in it and it is very much in us. — Rumer Godden

~My father says there are more than twenty thousand turned out for the king. It seems that most men think that we will win, that York will be captured and killed, though the king in his tender heart has said he will forgive them all if they will surrender.
~Will there be another battle?
~Unless York decides he cannot face the king in person. It is one sort of sin to kill your friends and cousins, quite another to order your bowmen to fire at the king's banner and him beneath it. What if the king is killed in battle? What if York brings his broadsword down on the king's sanctified head? — Philippa Gregory

I feel I owe it to the women that their stories should be told fully by us - the descendants and heirs to their very real struggles and genuine victories. And so I hope very much that you will find this novel is a gateway to take you closer to the lives of your inheritance, your forebears: these real women and their world. Philippa — Philippa Gregory

She would not let it go. "I had thought to be Queen of England and see my son on the throne," she repeated. — Philippa Gregory

How should I forget them? They are around me like wasps around a honeypot. — Philippa Gregory

I knew that I was smiling her smile, that she was a dark mirror to me. — Philippa Gregory

I wanted to get away from him before he led me into talking, before he made me feel angry, or grieved, or jealous all over again. I did not want to feel anything for him, not desire, not resentment. I wanted to be cold to him, so I turned on my heel and started to walk away. — Philippa Gregory

If women could only have more," I said longingly. "If we could have more in our own right. Being a woman at court is like forever watching a pastrycook at work in the kitchen. All those good things, and you can have nothing. — Philippa Gregory

I would know you anywhere for my true love. Whoever I was and whoever you were, I would know you at once for my true love. — Philippa Gregory

I am a queen" she observes. "It is natural that men are going to gather round me, hoping for a smile. — Philippa Gregory

If we think of our brains as a map, those early roads are like grooves, tram tracks, easy to fall into. — Philippa Perry

There scotsmen must have arses like leather,for while he ate I could see naught beneath his kilts but a pair of rather large balls , the secretary told him . - philippa — Bertrice Small

It seems whether we have a tendency towards being flexible or structured affects how we create, how we parent, how we work. — Philippa Perry

I'm utterly indifferent to Kate Middleton's baby. — Philippa Gregory

I feel no peace, I feel nothing. I think I will feel nothing forever. — Philippa Gregory

The more that I learn, the more sure I am that I have very much to learn ... — Philippa Gregory

I try to go to the gym three times a week, and I swim, too. — Philippa Gregory

She was a woman whose spirit had been hammered and forged until she could only ring true. Compared with the rest of us sho was silver, while we were pewter, a common of lead and tin. — Philippa Gregory

He is my brother," I said. "I cannot desert him."
"You can go to your own death," William said. "Or you can survive this, bring up your children, and guard Anne's little girl who will be shamed and bastardized and motherless by the end of this week. You can wait out this reign and see what comes next. See what the future holds for the Princess Elizabeth, defend our son Henry against those who will want to set him up as the king's heir or even worse-flaunt him as a pretender. You owe it to your children to protect them. — Philippa Gregory

I can speak of our baby like this to no one else. Who but his father would linger over the exact width of his gummy little smile or the blueness of his eyes, or the sweetness of his little lick of tawny hair on his forehead? — Philippa Gregory

I am sorry for you. And I am sorry for me. When you are sent back to me, perhaps a month from now, perhaps a year, I will try to remember this day, and you looking like a child, a little lost among all these clothes. I will try to remember that you were innocent of any plotting; that today at least, you were more a girl than a Boleyn. — Philippa Gregory

For these are true boys and they draw dirt to them as if by magic. — Philippa Gregory

The scene had been a nightmare, one of those insane nightmares where the most normal objects become infinitely menacing. — Philippa Gregory

The mown grass is growing again nearly to our knees; we will take a second crop of hay from this field, rich and green and starred with moon daisies, buttercups and the bright, blowsy heads of poppies. — Philippa Gregory

You're very old, aren't you?"
"Just as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth. — Philippa Pearce

Might be that marriage was not the death of a woman and the end of her true self, but the unfolding of her. It might be that a woman could be a wife without having to cut the pride and the spirit out of herself. A woman might blossom into being a wife, not be trimmed down to fit. — Philippa Gregory

Moving forward quietly to Jerott's side, Adam Blacklock had heard. 'Don't you understand? The authorities are afraid of them both,' he said gently. 'Why do you supose this cordon is here, which only an unarmed girl was allowed to pass through? Lymond, loyal to Scotland, might be a threat to French power greater than even Gabriel, one of these days - Philippa!' And a wordless shout, like a cry at a cockfight, rose among the stone pillars and sank muffled into the old, dusty banners above the choir roof. For Philippa Somerville, who believed in action when words were not enough, had leaned over and snatched the knife from Lymond's left hand. — Dorothy Dunnett

There is nothing to fear,' she says to me softly. 'There is never anything to fear. The worst fear is of fear itself, and you can conquer that.'
'How?' I murmur. It feels as if I am talking in my sleep, floating down a stream of sleep. 'How can I conquer the worst fear?'
'You just decide,' she says simply. 'Just decide that you are not going to be a fearful woman and when you come to something that makes you apprehensive, you face it and walk towards it. Remember - anything you fear,you walk slowly and steadily towards it. And smile. — Philippa Gregory

She flashed me a quick black glance and then her dark eyelashes swept down on her cheeks. 'Not me,' she said 'I make my own plans. I don't risk being taken up and dropped again.'
'You told me to risk it.' I reminded her.
'That was for you,' she said 'I would not live my life as you live yours. You would always do as you were bid. I am not like you. I make my own way. — Philippa Gregory

I believe in me, in my view of the world. I believe in my responsibility for my own destiny, guilt for my own sins, merit for my own good deeds, determination of my own life. I don't believe in miracles, I believe in hard work. — Philippa Gregory

I am marrying the finest man I have ever known." "It will cost you dear," he warns. "It would be worse to lose him. — Philippa Gregory

The law is what powerful men say it shall be. — Philippa Gregory

We all had parts to play, we all had costumes to wear, we all had to be as merry as we could be, for the King was always laughing this winter and the Queen never stopped smiling. — Philippa Gregory

My honour and my pride are in my heart, and not in what the world says. — Philippa Gregory

But from morning to night Anne was with the king, as close to his side as a newly wed bride, as a chief counselor, as a best friend. She would return to our chamber only to change her gown or lie on the bed and snatch a rest while he was at Mass, or when he wanted to ride out with his gentlemen. Then she would lie in silence, like one who has dropped dead of exhaustion. Her gaze would be blank on the canopy of the bed, her eyes wide open, seeing nothing. She would breathe slowly and steadily as if she were sick. She would not speak at all. When she was in this state I learned to leave her alone. She had to find some way to rest from the unending public performance. She had to be unstoppably charming, not just to the king but to everyone who might glance in her direction. One moment of looking less than radiant and a rumor storm would swirl around the court and engulf her, and engulf us all with her. When — Philippa Gregory

Yes, but either way, shamed or not, I shall be Queen of England, and this is the last time you will sit in my presence. — Philippa Gregory

Discover new countries, and bring back wealth. My work is closer to home. I build, I establish, — Philippa Gregory

When I rose up the queen was looking toward me, not as if I were a rival, but as if I were still her favorite little maid in waiting who might bring her some comfort. She looked at me as if for a moment she would seek someone who would understand the dreadful predicament of a woman, in this world ruled by men. George — Philippa Gregory

She looked at me as if for a moment she would seek someone who would understand the dreadful predicament of a woman, in this world ruled by men. — Philippa Gregory

It matters not at all that I do not want to marry, that I am afraid of the wedding, afraid of consummating the marriage, afraid of childbirth, afraid of everything about being a wife. Nobody even asks if I have lost my childhood sense of vocation, if I still want to be a nun. Nobody cares what I think at all. They treat me like an ordinary young woman, bred for wedding and bedding, and since they do not ask me what I think, nor observe what I feel, there is nothing that gives them pause at all. — Philippa Gregory

When I was first at court and he was the young husband of a beautiful wife, he was a golden king. They called him the handsomest prince in Christendom, and that was not flattery. Mary Boleyn was in love with him, Anne was in love with him, I was in love with him. There was not one girl at court, nor one girl in the country, who could resist him. Then he turned against his wife, Queen Katherine, a good woman, and Anne taught him how to be cruel. — Philippa Gregory

Because they will want me in Edinburgh to make sure that the Scottish king holds to the new alliance with England. They'll want me to hold him in friendship with Henry. They'll think that if I am queen in Scotland then James will never invade my son-in-law's kingdom." "And?" I whisper. "They're wrong," she says vengefully. "They're so very wrong. The day that I am Queen of Scotland with an army to command and a husband to advise, I won't serve Henry Tudor. I won't persuade my husband to keep a peace treaty with Henry. If I were strong enough and could command the allies I would need, I would march against Henry Tudor myself, come south with an army of terror. — Philippa Gregory

But Philippa was hardly listening. "It's a riddle," she declared finally, pointing to the card in the strange little round window. "I think that if we answer the riddle we can get in. Listen 'The beginning of eternity. The end of time and space. The beginning of every end. And the end pf everyplace."
John shrugged. "I don't get it."
"No, but I do," Philippa said triumphantly. "The answer is the letter e. E is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of everyplace. — P.B. Kerr

There are probably times where the creative process is not helped by collaboration. — Philippa Perry

When Philippa had first demanded his help in eluding Kate and travelling to St Mary's, he had indignantly refused. He was there now because he had discovered, to his astonishment, that she was desperate, and perfectly capable of going without him. Why she had got it into her young head she must see this man Crawford, Cheese-wame didn't know. But after pointing out bitterly that (a) he would lose his job; (b) the rogues in the Debatable would kill them, (c) that she would catch her death of cold and (d) that Kate would never speak to either of them again, he went, his belt filled with knives and her belongings as well as his own in the two saddlebags behind his powerful thighs, while Philippa rode sedately beside him on her smaller horse, green with excitement, with her father's pistol tied to her waist like a ship's log and banging against her thin knees. — Dorothy Dunnett