And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Va...
He’s not real I can take his space. As I get into bed beside him, the strongman vanishes. I pick up my diary and record him: was there, isn’t any more. This happened in early July, 2010. I had surgery...
He and the cardinal agree it would be better if Luther had never been born, or better if he had been born more subtle.
What kind of persons writes fiction about the past?
Well, you know the form,’ Bedingfield says. ‘She lives in that room and has her ladies – those ones – cook for her over the fire. You knock and go in, and if you call her Lady Katherine she kicks you...
The prose, Robespierre said. It’s so clean, no conceits, no show, no wit. He means every word. Formerly, you see, he meant every other word. That was his style.
Robespierre has never forgiven his friends the injuries he has done them, nor the kindnesses he has received from them, nor the talents some of them possess that he doesn’t.
Marlinspike goes down to the kitchen, to grow stout and live out his beastly nature. There is a summer ahead, though he cannot imagine its pleasures; sometimes when he’s walking in the garden he sees...
Leases, writes, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest.
It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters. W...
It is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.
It is a wan morning, low unbroken cloud; the light, filtering sparely through glass, is the color of tarnished pewter. How brightly colored the king is, like the king in a new pack of cards: how small...
I was just going over London Bridge and I saw someone had attacked the Madonna's statue. Knocked off the baby's head.’‘That was done a while back. It would be that devil Cranmer. You know what he is w...
I think now that this is the great division between people. There are people who find life hard and those who find it easy. There are those who have a natural, in-built, expectation of happiness, and...
I have written books and I cannot unwrite them. I cannot unbelieve what i believe. I cannot unlive my life
I do no damage. This is damage, this.He picked up a paper from Camille’s desk. I can’t read your writing, but I take it the general tenor is that Brissot should go and hang himself.
I can’t divide Camille’s loyalties. Who knows? He might make the wrong choice.
Hérault, Fabre thinks: and his mind drifts back—as it tends to, these days— to the Café du Foy. He’d been giving readings from his latest—Augusta was dying the death at the Italiens—and in came this h...
Henry glares at him. I will say this for you. You stick by your man. I have never had anything from the cardinal other than kindness. Why would I not?
He will remember his first sight of the open sea: a gray wrinkled vastness, like the residue of a dream.