The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Sharon Kay Penman

Sharon Kay Penman

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

crusades, hell, historical-fiction

Sharon Kay Penman

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.

mistakes, repentance

Sharon Kay Penman

Why is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does?

honesty, men, women

Sharon Kay Penman

Statecraft and kingship were not for the faint of heart

Sharon Kay Penman

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.

grief, marriage, treason

Sharon Kay Penman

The great hall was shimmering in light, sun streaming from the open windows, and ablaze with colour, the walls decorated with embroidered hangings in rich shades of gold and crimson. New rushes had been strewn about, fragrant with lavender, sweet woodruff, and balm… the air was… perfumed with honeysuckle and violet, their seductive scents luring in from the gardens butterflies as blue as the summer sky.

colour, light, perfume, scent

Sharon Kay Penman

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.

babies, harvest, humour, sex

Sharon Kay Penman

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.

Sharon Kay Penman

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

Sharon Kay Penman

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.

Sharon Kay Penman

What do you know of sacrifice? Need I tell you of York’s dead . . . of Sandal Castle? My brother did survive the battle, his first. He was seventeen and he entreated them to spare his life. They cut his throat. Their heads were then impaled on York’s Micklegate Bar to please the House of Lancaster, to please a harlot and a madman. She had my father’s head crowned with straw and she left a spike between the two. . . . That one, she said, was for York’s other son.

Sharon Kay Penman

I would see him, Edward.’It was no request; he knew it to be an ultimatum. He shook his head violently, not trusting his voice. Time passed. She was staring at him, saying nothing, and on her face was a look of stunned disbelief, of anguished accusation he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. But when she spoke, her voice held no hint of tears. It was not a voice to offer either understanding or absolution, spoke of no quarter given, of a lifetime of love denied.’God may forgive you for this,’ she said, very slowly and distinctly, ‘but I never shall.