They were partners. She would always make impulsive decisions and he would make slow, reasoned ones. He would always be a little terrified that she would look at him with the scorn he saw in his mother's eyes. And she would always be a little terrified that he would look at her and not love her enough. In short, they were made for each other.

Life should not be measured by time. The only thing that counts is how one uses the time one has.

My duchess,” James stated, his eyes sweeping the crowd with the air of a man who has ruled the waves. “She is not a swan, because that would imply she had once been an ugly duckling.

You are absolutely beautiful," Anne said. "But if you see yourself, you'll want to pin your hair back like a shepherdess in a bad play." (Eleanor) "Are you saying that I normally look as if I'm tending sheep? With straw in my hair? As if I might yodel?

It’s better to live like a flame, to know a man and love him even if he can’t be yours, then never to love at all.

I have six illegitimate children," Villiers informed her, not kindly. She visibly paled. :My daughter is marrying a duke," the duchess said between clenched teeth. "True, he apparently has the morals of a squirrel, but that's my cross to bear.

Shame can kill the imagination. It's hard to keep writing in the face of cultural derision.