I would be very, very uncomfortable at teaching, at dreaming to teach, people things.

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.

Words have weight, something once said cannot be unsaid. Meaning is like a stone dropped into a pool; the ripples will spread and you cannot know what back they wash against.

There are many sorts of love. And when you love a man who is less than you dreamed, you have to make allowances for the difference between a real man and a dream. Sometimes you have to forgive him. Perhaps you even have to forgive him often. But forgiveness often comes with love.

He is my brother. She is my sister. Come what will, they are my kin.

Although some people think I am a romantic novelist I have always thought of myself as a rather gritty radical historian.