Best 39 quotes of Sharon Kay Penman on MyQuotes

Abigail Adams could become my favorite historical sleuth.

A cynic who was still saddened whenever his jaundiced view of mankind was confirmed.

...A scar signifies past pain, a wound that did not heal as it ought. But it testifies, too, to survival...(Here be Dragons)

Forget the threat of Hell's infernal flames. The true torture would condemn a man to wait and wait and wait - for an eternity

How fragile life was, how fleeting their days on earth, and how fickle was Death, claiming the young as often as the old, the healthy as often as the ailing, cruelly stealing away a baby's first breath, a mother's fading heartbeat.

I'd not want to answer for the lives of other men; not at seventeen, by God's Grace.

I’ll admit that my garden now grows hope in lavish profusion, leaving little room for anything else. I suppose it has squeezed out more practical plants like caution and common sense. Still, though, hope does not flourish in every garden, and I feel thankful it has taken root in mine.

In time of war, the Devil makes more room in Hell.

I should like to freeze in time all those I do love, keep them somehow safe from the ravages of the passing years..."Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!

It was just like him, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him; she found herself believing in happy endings, too.

Men are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.

Men kill for many reasons, they steal but for one-greed.

Poor Wales. So far from Heaven, so close to England.

Richard, might I ask you something? We've talked tonight of what you must do, of what you can do, of what you ought to do.But we've said nothing of what you want to do.Richard, do you want to be King?" At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. But as she studied his face, she saw he was turning her question over in his mind, seeking to answer it as honestly as he could. "Yes," he said at last. "Yes...I do.

When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7

All he wanted was enough time to consider all his options without being dragged into his household’s petty squabbles or being nagged by his wife about that damnable pilgrimage. Was that so much to ask? Apparently so, for he’d yet to find a peaceful moment at Caen, not with Marguerite sulking and Aimar lurking and Will acting put-upon and Geoff wanting to lay plans and Richard strutting around as if he were the incarnation of Roland and poor Tilda grieving over Maman’s absence and his father refusing to heed any voice but his own.

Edward was now expressing himself on the subject of the French King, drawing upon a vocabulary that a Southwark brothel-keeper might envy. Some of what he was saying was anatomically impossible, much of it was true and all of it envenomed.

Francis stared down at the Duchess of York's letter. He swallowed, then read aloud in a husky voice, "It was showed by John Sponer that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City." As Margaret listened, the embittered grey eyes had softened, misted with sudden tears. "My brother may lie in an untended grave," she said, "but he does not lack for an epitaph.

Geoffrey looked startled to see both his great-uncles bearing down upon him with such haste; he hadn’t realized men their age could move so fast.

He'd never seen one so vibrant, though, or so vividly compelling... those glowing green eyes sparkling with sunlight and curiosity and silent laughter, and when she glanced in Henry's direction, she held his gaze, a look that was both challenging and enigmatic... He was utterly certain that this was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and no less sure that the French King must be one of God's greatest fools.

He’d passed the longest night of his life locked in mortal combat with his ghosts, calling up and then disavowing twenty years of memories. He would banish that bitch from his heart if it meant cutting her out with his own dagger. And when at last he allowed himself to grieve, he did so silently and unwillingly, his tears hidden by the darkness, his rage congealing into a core of ice.

He looked upon this verdant, blossoming spring, a spring Joanna would never see, he looked upon a field of brilliant blue flowers- the bluebells Joanna had so loved- and at that moment he'd willingly have bartered all his tomorrows for but one yesterday.

His was a lonely, unorthodox conviction that war was man's ultimate failure.

I am not going to let him win, Guillaume. Not this time. I could not keep him from making my mother pay the price for our failed rebellion. Fifteen years she has been his prisoner, fifteen years! And she is his prisoner, for all that she no longer wants for a queen’s comforts. I have had to submit to his demands and subject myself to his whims and endure the indignity of having him brandish the crown before me as he would tease a dog with a bone. But no more. I will not let him rob me of my birthright, and I will not let him keep me from honoring my vow to defend the Holy Land. I do think he is behind that very opportune rebellion in my duchy, and I would not put it past him to be conniving with the Count of Toulouse, either. And if by chance he did not, it is only because he did not think of it. No, a reckoning is long overdue, and we will have it at Bonsmoulins.

In the past few months, life had lost its sweetness and he’d lost his way. But no longer. Death was once again the enemy, his indifference and apathy drowned in a Cheshire pond.

I think the day might come, Bess, when all men will know of Dickon is what they were told by Tudor historians like Rous." "Jesú, no!" Bess sounded both appalled and emphatic. "You mustn't think that. Whatever the lies being told about Dickon now, surely the truth will eventually win out. Scriptures does say that 'Great is truth and it prevails,' and I believe that, Grace." Bess straightened up in the bed, shoved yet another pillow against her back. "I have to believe that," she said quietly. "Not just for Dickon's sake, but for us all. For when all is said and done, the truth be all we have.

It was a basic tenet of faith with men of Ranulf’s class that a knight, trained in the ways of war since boyhood, could easily vanquish lesser foes, as much a belief in the superiority of blood and breeding as in the benefits of battle lore and killing competence. Ranulf had accepted this comforting conviction, too, but no one seemed to have told his assailants that they were inferior adversaries.

Outside, the sky was clear, stars gleaming in its ebony vastness like celestial fireflies. It was bitterly cold, and Hywel's every breath trailed after him in pale puffs of smoke. The glazed snow crackled underfoot as he started towards the great hall.

Removing his helmet, Edward knelt by the stream called Swillgate, a name that effectively quenched any desire to drink from its depths.

Richard knew, of course, that his was thought to be an unlucky title; only twice before had a Richard ruled England, and both met violent ends.

She knew she'd wounded him when he'd least expected it, and her satisfaction lasted until the door had closed behind him. Once he was gone, it ebbed away along with her anger, leaving her with naught but the ashes and embers of a dying hearth fire.

She opened her mouth, clamped it shut again. This was new, this sudden favor shown Gloucester, had been brought back with him from Burgundy like some malevolent foreign pox.

Tonight," he said, "we shall get quietly and thoroughly drunk...in memory of all that was lost. And on the morrow, I begin the struggle to win it back.

Twilight was laying claim to the cité, and the sky was a deepening shade of lavender, spangled with stars and fleecy clouds the colour of plums.

Well, dearest, what would you tell a farmer who had an over-abundant harvest? To plant less, of course!"... "I am not complaining about the frequency of the planting," she said. "I’d just rather not reap a crop every year.

We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?

We've schemed and fought and loved until we are so entangled in hearts and minds that there is no way to set us free. God help us both, Harry, for we will never be rid of each other. Not even death will do that.

...what an unfair advantage the dead had over the living, for there could be no rebuttal, no denial, nothing but the accusing silence of the grave.

What followed was for him a very entertaining spectacle, with one of Edward's brothers seemingly intent upon the most subtle of seductions and the other barely able to force malmsey past the gorge rising in his throat.