Quotes from Here be Dragons

“Poor Wales. So far from Heaven, so close to England.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Eleanor would have been indifferent to the immorality of her adultery, but would never have forgiven the stupidity of it.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“The Welsh were a god-cursed, stiff-necked, and utterly vexatious people, John said bitterly, but they did have an inexplicable ability to rise phoenixlike from the ashes of defeat, to soar upwards on wings too scorched for flight.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Oh, John is clever enough. But what do brains avail a man if he does lack for backbone?”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Whilst stupidity may indeed be a sin, it is also possible to be too clever. I sometimes fear, John, that you are too clever by half.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Indeed. But I was not thinking of his immortal soul, Matilda. I was thinking that history is chronicled by monks.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“If disliking Richard be grounds for accusing a man of conspiracy, I daresay you could implicate half of Christendom in this so-called plot. Richard endears himself easiest to those who've yet to meet him.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“If that’s how you’d rather remember it. But I did not mean that as a reproach. I do not, in truth, think less of you for having the common sense to abandon a ship once waves began to break over the bow. Nor, after sixteen years shut away from the sun, am I likely to find tears to spare for Henry Plantagenet.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“War is the least productive of men’s pastimes, and the most indulgent.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Poor Wales, so far from Heaven, so close to England!”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“The day that he accused a reigning King of murder was the day he signed his own death warrant, and he knew it.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“I’ve never been so hungry that I was willing to lick honey off thorns.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“There are secret sins and found-out sins, and it is foolish to worry about the first until it becomes the second.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“I would look dreadful in black.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Richard forced him from his sickbed, broke his power, his pride. But you, John, you broke his heart. I truly wonder which be the greater sin.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“In a contest of wills between John and his mother, he did not think John would prevail, indeed he hoped he would not. But he did not care to be a witness to their confrontation; he suspected Eleanor's methods would be neither maternal nor merciful.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Otherwise, I’d like nothing better than…conversing with you. You’re such a deep, penetrating conversationalist, after all,”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“Memory is merciful, Joanna, more so than man. It fades past pain, yet holds bright the colors in recalled joy.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Here be Dragons

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Popular quotes

“Lately
I’ve been dreaming about you
About us
Sharing our secrets
Talking, even if we argued
Kept talking, till we slept
Maybe I woke up
On the wrong side of bed
Maybe I thought about you
Just a little too much”
― Irum Zahra, quote from Psychaotic: See The World In Red And Black

“Бывает, нападет хандра — кажется, так и помрешь одинокой; ни в настоящем, ни в будущем ничего хорошего не светит. Оглядываясь на прожитые годы, вспоминаешь только ошибки и неудачи, калеча тем самым и прошлое. Но особенно неприятно то, что, зная врага в лицо, ты не в силах ничего с ним поделать.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from Eleanor Rigby

“The Economics of Property-Casualty Insurance With the acquisition of General Re — and with GEICO’s business mushrooming — it becomes more important than ever that you understand how to evaluate an insurance company. The key determinants are: (1) the amount of float that the business generates; (2) its cost; and (3) most important of all, the long-term outlook for both of these factors. To begin with, float is money we hold but don't own. In an insurance operation, float arises because premiums are received before losses are paid, an interval that sometimes extends over many years. During that time, the insurer invests the money. Typically, this pleasant activity carries with it a downside: The premiums that an insurer takes in usually do not cover the losses and expenses it eventually must pay. That leaves it running an "underwriting loss," which is the cost of float. An insurance business has value if its cost of float over time is less than the cost the company would otherwise incur to obtain funds. But the business is a lemon if its cost of float is higher than market rates for money. A caution is appropriate here: Because loss costs must be estimated, insurers have enormous latitude in figuring their underwriting results, and that makes it very difficult for investors to calculate a company's true cost of float. Errors of estimation, usually innocent but sometimes not, can be huge. The consequences of these miscalculations flow directly into earnings. An experienced observer can usually detect large-scale errors in reserving, but the general public can typically do no more than accept what's presented, and at times I have been amazed by the numbers that big-name auditors have implicitly blessed. As for Berkshire, Charlie and I attempt to be conservative in presenting its underwriting results to you, because we have found that virtually all surprises in insurance are unpleasant ones. The table that follows shows the float generated by Berkshire’s insurance operations since we entered the business 32 years ago. The data are for every fifth year and also the last, which includes General Re’s huge float. For the table we have calculated our float — which we generate in large amounts relative to our premium volume — by adding net loss reserves, loss adjustment reserves, funds held under reinsurance assumed and unearned premium reserves, and then subtracting agents balances, prepaid acquisition costs, prepaid taxes and deferred charges applicable to assumed reinsurance. (Got that?)”
― Warren Buffett, quote from Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders

“And did you feel like, 'This is it!?' Did music swell and fireworks explode and did you think to yourself,'This is what a kiss is supposed to feel like?'"

"It was like ice cream."

"I worked at DQ. Trust me, it's not like ice cream."

"No, I mean it's like all my life I've been eating frozen yogurt. And kissing boys is ice cream.”
― Michael Barakiva, quote from One Man Guy

“If she'd said she loved me and still did all those cruel and careless things, would my child mind have decided to accept that as the definition of love?

Probably.

Would I have ended up believing that love was manipulative and hurtful and full of pain, gotten use to being shoved aside, sworn at and disregarded, picked up and hugged, and then slapped around for getting in the way, starved and smiled at, neglected and cursed, told I was no good and would never amount to anything, then hefted high and proudly shown off down at the Walmart, introduced as a little pisser and a big mistake in the same breath?

Yes, I would have, because if she said she loved me and then acted that way I would have thought that was how you loved someone, and how someone should love you back.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Ordinary Beauty

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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