Best 34 quotes of Elizabeth Peters on MyQuotes

Any man with a grain of sense knows that marriage is the only way, these days, to acquire a full-time maid who works twenty-five hours a day, with no time off and no pay except room and board. (p9)

As Ramses did the same for his mother, he saw that her eyes were fixed on him. She had been unusually silent. She had not needed his father's tactless comment to understand the full implications of Farouk's death. As he met her unblinking gaze he was reminded of one of Nefret's more vivid descriptions. 'When she's angry, her eyes look like polished steel balls.' That's done it, he thought. She's made up her mind to get David and me out of this if she has to take on every German and Turkish agent in the Middle East.

Bless the ladies and their charming inconsistency! They demand to be treated like men, but they react like women.

But he was a perfect gentleman, Aunt Amelia. He did not even try to kiss me, though he wanted to. ... You always tell me I must be receptive to broadening experiences. That would have been a broadening experience. And, from what I have observed, a very enjoyable one.

Emerson abandoned irony for blunt and passionate speech. 'This war has been a monumental blunder from the start! Britain is not solely responsible, but by God, gentlemen, she must share the blame, and she will pay a heavy price: the best of her young men, future scholars and scientists and statesmen, and ordinary, decent men who might have led ordinary, decent lives. And how will it end, when you tire of your game of soldiers? A few boundaries redrawn, a few transitory political advantages, in exchange for an entire continent laid waste and a million graves! What I do may be of minor importance in the total accumulation of knowledge, but at least I don't have blood on my hands.

Emerson has what I believe is called a selective memory. He can recall minute details of particular excavations but is likely to forget where he left his hat.

Emerson is a remarkable person, considering that he is a man. Which is not saying a great deal.

Emerson once remarked that if I should encounter a band of Dervishes, five minutes of my nagging would unquestionably inspire even the mildest of them to massacre me....

Have you caught cold?' 'It would appear so.' 'You could give it to Margaret,' Ramses suggested. His uncle turned the tinted spectacles toward him and then, unexpectedly, bust into laughter. 'What a charming idea. Will you aid and abet me when I catch her in a close embrace and breathe heavily on her?

He smiled affably at the burglar, a burly fellow whom he continued to hold with one hand, as easily as if he had been a child. The entire household had been aroused, and a good number of them had joined in, shouting questions and brandishing various deadly instruments. The burglar glared wildly at Emerson, bare to the waist and bulging with muscle - at Gargery and his cudgel - at Selim, fingering a knife even longer than Nefret's - at assorted footmen armed with pokers, spits, and cleavers - and at the giant form of Daoud advancing purposefully toward him. 'It's a bleedin' army!' he gurgled. 'The lyin' barstard said you was some kind of professor!

I always carry the book of Holy Writ...and something to read...

I do not doubt he has a low opinion of women too. Gallantry is often a cloak for contempt.

I don't think she realized how much she cared for him, or he for her, until the end. Hasn't someone said a woman may be known by the men who love her enough to die for her? (If they haven't, I claim the credit myself.)

I fink it is a femuw. A femuw of a winowcowus... A a-stinct winocowus.

I have never been able to understand how men can feel affection for individuals who are intent on massacring them in a variety of unpleasant ways, but it is an undeniable fact that they can and do. Witness the immortal verse of Mr. Kipling: "So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'home in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man!" One can only accept this as another example of the peculiar emotional aberrations of the male sex.

I was beginning to fear that you had turned into one of those boring females who can only say 'Yes, my dear' ... You know very well, Peabody, that our little discussions are the spice of life -- 'The pepper in the soup of marriage' -- Very aptly put, Peabody. If you become meek and acquiescent, I will put an advertisement in the Times telling Sethos to drop by and collect you. Promise me you will never stop scolding...

love has a very dulling effect on the brain

Men believe women are hopeless gossips, but women know men are. The poor creatures are worse than women in some ways, because they cannot admit to themselves that they are gossiping, or doubt the discretion of the individuals in whom they confide. 'Strictly in confidence, old boy, just between you and me...'.

Men like to create unnecessary organizations and give them impressive or mysterious names; this usually ends in increased confusion, and should therefore be ignored.

My feelings are a fact, not a personal delusion. They are valid for me. What business have you got trying to tell me how I ought to feel?

...Peabody had better retire to her bed; she is clearly in need of recuperative sleep, she has not made a sarcastic remark for fully ten minutes.

Reputable scholars might have denied its authenticity, but there are always other scholars who disagree--and people will believe what they want to believe, never mind the evidence. If there is anything life has taught me, it is that there is no idea so absurd that someone will not accept it as truth, and no action so bizarre that it will not be justified in the eyes of a true believer.

Selim, you will speak with your kin and your friends in Gurneh; perhaps some of them will respond to direct threats--questions, I mean to say.

Someone was certainly guilty of something, however, and it behooved us to take all possible precautions.

Speculation,' I retorted, 'is never a waste of time. It clears away the deadwood in the thickets of deduction.

The cat required far less attendance than a human child, which is one of the reasons why spinster ladies prefer felines to babies.

The men had scattered in all directions, which men are inclined to do when women leave them to their own devices for any length of time. I believe they are easily bored.

There is no creature better at delicate rudeness than a cat...

The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.

They will have difficulties to overcome,' I admitted. 'Including the differences in their religions. However, marriage is always a chancy business, Katherine. I have known individuals who appeared perfectly suited, by family background, religion, and nationality, who were thoroughly miserable.' 'So you believe in taking the chance?' 'Certainly. What is life without some risk?

Though Emerson is a firm believer in the equality of the female sex, he has some secret reservations, and one of them involves the car. (There is something about these machines that makes men want to pound their chests and roar like gorillas. I speak figuratively, of course.)

To see Ramses, at fourteen months, wrinkling his brows over a sentence like 'The theology of the Egyptians was a compound of fetishism, totem-ism and syncretism' was a sight as terrifying as it was comical. Even more terrifying was the occasional thoughtful nod the child would give. ...the room was dark except for one lamp, by whose light Emerson was reading. Ramses, in his crib, contemplated the ceiling with rapt attention. It made a pretty little family scene, until one heard what was being said. '...the anatomical details of the wounds, which included a large gash in the frontal bone, a broken malar bone and orbit, and a spear thrust which smashed off the mastoid process and struck the atlas vertebra, allow us to reconstruct the death scene of the king.' ... From the small figure in the cot came a reflective voice. 'It appeaws to me that he was muwduwed.'...' a domestic cwime.'...'One of the ladies of the hawem did it, I think.' I seized Emerson by the arm and pushed him toward the door, before he could pursue this interesting suggestion.

When, oh when will justice and reason prevail, and Woman descend from the pedestal on which Man has placed her (in order to prevent her from doing anything except standing perfectly still) and take her rightful place beside him?

You certainly are a repository of useless information. How do you know all that?' David asked, with more amusement than admiration. 'I have a mind like a magpie's, easily distracted by interesting odds and ends,' Ramses admitted.