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.

I turn around from the window and for the first time I see him... It is Richard, smiling at my surprise. I run to him, without thinking what I am doing. I run to the first friendly face that I have seen since Christmas, and in a moment I am in his arms and he is holding me tightly and kissing my face, my closed eyes, my smiling mouth, kissing me till I am breathless and have to pull away from him.

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.

She is Melusina, the water goddess, and she is found in hidden springs and waterfalls in any forest in Christendom, even in those as far away as Greece. (...) A man may love her if he keeps her secret and lets her alone when she wants to bathe, and she may love him in return until he breaks his word, as men always do, and she sweeps him into the depths with her fishy tail, and turns his faithless blood to water. The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.

You have to choose the best, every day, without compromise...guided by your own virtue and highest ambition

You can smile when your heart is breaking because you are a woman, and a courtier, and a Howard. That's three reasons for being the most deceitful creature on God's earth.

Every woman has to have something which singles her out, which catches the eyes, which makes her the center of attention. I am going to be french.