Philippa Gregory Quotes

Have you ever wondered, Anne, in your untiring dance of seduction, whether you might not be dancing to Henry's tune instead of your own? I know how clever you are. How enticing. People whisper the wor...

He did not care, he was besotted with his pregnant queen, he dropped like a boy to kneel beside her, to put his hands on her great round belly and look up into her face.

He treats her as if he would spare her any fatigue, as if he has dedicated his life to her happiness.

He’s a young man who has lived under the shadow of the sword from the moment when he fled England as a boy of fourteen to the day when he rode home to fight for his claim. Nobody knows better than he...

However heart-stopping his smile and however honest his eyes, however much I think of him as a boy fired to greatness by his own ambition, I cannot trust him.

I am a woman who makes things happen, and I am not defeated yet. I am not defeated by a boy with a newly won crown, and no man will ever walk away from me certain that he won't walk back.

I am a woman with water in her veins and power in her breeding. I am a woman who makes things happen, and I am not defeated yet. I am not defeated by a boy with a newly won crown, and no man will ever...

I am exhorted to be virtuous and fertile. The people see me indicated as the choice of God for Queen of England. Choirs sing as I enter the city, rose petals are showered down on me. I am myself, my o...

I have my own loyalties and obligations that I consider and honor. They are not his. They are not at the beck and call of any man.

I have not slept for nights. I have not eaten for days. I am a soul in torment. Tell me if you think that she loves me, if you think that she might love me. Tell me, for pity’s sake.

I kneel on the planks for her blessing, and then sit beside her with my feet dangling over the edge and my own reflection looking up at me as if I were a water goddess living under the river, waiting...

I know I am a better woman than her. She’s ice and ambition, and she would see you on the gallows before surrendering her ambition. And I know that in me he has a lover who loves him for himself. But...

I looked over to Anne. She was untying her mask and watching me with a long calculating look, the Boleyn look, the Howard look that says: what has happened here, and how may I turn it to my advantage?...

I want my honour to be about me as a person, not me as an object with boundaries and gateways, as if I were a field – someone can touch my hand, someone can see my face, someone else can’t even speak...

I would play ball with Catherine, and hide and seek: Not a very challenging game in an open meadow, but she was still at the age where she believed that if she shut her eyes and buried her head under...

I would rather see you dead at my feet than dishonored.

If it is to be done at all, it must be done with grace.

If my honour is a real thing then it can’t depend on whether a man sees my face, or touches my hand, or kisses my lips. If I am an honourable woman then I am an honourable woman like a man is an honou...

If women could only have more, I said longingly. If we could have more in our own right. Being a woman at court is like forever watching a pastrycook at work in the kitchen. All those good things, and...

It’s as if our name is both our greatest pride and our curse, I say.