Margaret George · 939 pages
Rating: (23.8K votes)
“Thus we use our supposed "knowledge" of others to speak on their behalf, and condemn them for their words we ourselves put in their silent mouths.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
“Yet we always envy others, comparing our shadows to their sunlit sides.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
“Boredom is that awful state of inaction when the very medicine ― that is, activity ― which could solve it, is seen as odious.
Archery? It is too cold, and besides, the butts need re-covering; the rats have been at the straw.
Music? To hear it is tedious; to compose it, too taxing. And so on.
Of all the afflictions, boredom is ultimately the most unmanning.
Eventually, it transforms you into a great nothing who does nothing ― a cousin to sloth and a brother to melancholy.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
“To recount these histories is like unravelling a thread: one means only to tell one little part, but then another comes in, and another, for they are all part of the same garment — Tudor, Lancaster, York, Plantagenet.”
― Margaret George, quote from The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
“Then it all came together—every particle of discontent, nostalgia, and resistance in England—fusing in the North. The North: two words to describe a territory and a state of mind. England was conquered and civilized from the South upwards, and as one approached the borders of Scotland—first through Yorkshire and then Durham and finally Northumberland—everything dwindled. The great forests gave way first to stunted trees and then to open, windswept moors; the towns shrank to villages and then to hamlets; cultivated fields were replaced by empty, wild spaces. Here the Cistercian monasteries flourished, they who removed themselves from the centers of civilization and relied on manual labour as a route to holiness. The sheep became scrawnier and their wool thicker, and the men became lawless and more secretive, clannish. Winter lasted eight months and even the summers were grey and raw, leading Northumberland men to claim they had “two winters—a white one and a green one.” Since ancient times these peripheral lands had gone their own way, little connected to anything further south. A few great warrior families—the Percys, the Nevilles, the Stanleys—had claimed overlordship of these dreary, cruel wastes, and through them, the Crown had demanded obeisance. But”
― Margaret George, quote from The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
“Some may say I'm perceptive"
"And what would you say?" I ask, my voice edgy, tired of being toyed with.
"I'd say I agree.”
― Alyson Noel, quote from Fated
“They returned to the gallery and circled its rim, then went down a short hall. Scrap's tail twitched angrily when they reached Tristan's door: it was shut. Daine grabbed the knob. It stung her hand, making her yelp. "Kit? This ones magicked. Can you do anything?"
Kitten stood on her hind feet and peered into the lock, then whistled two cheerful notes. Nothing happened. She scowled and whistled again, less cheerfully, more as a demand. Nothing happened.
Daine was trying to decide what to do now when the dragon moved back and croaked. The lock popped from the wood to land at Daine's feet, smoking, and the door swung open. Kitten muttered darkly and kicked the lock mechanism aside as she went in. Daine followed, trying not to laugh.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Wolf-Speaker
“And this all causes her to wonder at the disparity between the silk dresses and the natural postures of the body, and to think: How far, HOW FAR, we are willing to go to pretend we are not of the body at all.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Fortune's Rocks
“It’s best to be ruthless with the past. It ain’t the blows we’re dealt that matter, but the ones we survive.”
― Stephen King, quote from Rose Madder
“I cannot help but wonder how many of us walk through our lives, day after day, feeling slightly broken and alone, surrounded all the time by others who feel exactly the same way.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, quote from The Slow Regard of Silent Things
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