Sandra Gulland · 448 pages
Rating: (14K votes)
“I play out the cards. They say: This is Heaven, this is Hell. It is one.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“He calls me Josephine. He says I'm an angel, a saint, his good lucky star. I know I'm no angel, but in truth I have begun to like this Josephine he sees. She is intelligent; she amuses; she is pleasing. She is grace and charm and heart. Unlike Rose; scared, haunted and needy. Unlike Rose with her sad life.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“A feeling of disquiet continues to haunt me. As a youth one dreams of love; by the time one wakes, it is too late.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“The Queen has been guillotined, accused of crimes beyond imagining. Last night she appeared to me in a dream, handing me her head.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“You are thinking of the past." I put my arms around her. She'd risen from childbed too soon. "We are the past," she said.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“Daggers ever at the ready, I went about the day: children fed, linens mended, bedclothes aired. In little ways one conquers fear.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“I lowered myself into an armchair. I was enveloped in a cloud of dust. All that remained of my life was in my lap. I sat for a time thus, as still as the mute objects that surrounded me. How little it all meant, in the end.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“I kissed his cheek. "My King." I swooped into the courtly curtsy he'd taught me as a girl, regally kicking an imaginary train aside as I turned to go. He was laughing silently as I left. For a moment I saw that spark again. I did not say goodbye.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“Now I have discovered where it is that she goes. It's the guillotine that draws her, across the river in the Place Louis Quinze- Place de la Revolution now-where daily crowds gather, the vendors selling lemonade, the children playing prisoner's base, the old ladies gossiping as the heads fall.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“One leads, willing or not," Deputy Tallien answered. "It takes courage to face one's own death but even more so the death of others. We are learning this lesson well." The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gullan”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
Sandra Gulland
Born place: in Miami, The United States
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“Lockwood didn’t speak until everything was quiet again. “I know you’re worrying about me, Luce,” he said. “But you really mustn’t. These things happen when you’re an agent. You’ve been snared by ghosts in the past, haven’t you? There was the one that made the bloody footprints, and the thing in the tunnels below the Aickmere Brothers store. But it’s fine, because I helped you then, and you’ve helped me now. We’re there to help each other. If we do that, we’ll get through.” Which was a lovely thing to say, and it made me feel a little warmer. I just had to hope it was true.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Empty Grave
“The very essence of things is totally changed. You neither are agreed upon the definition of the soul nor on that of matter. Descartes, as I observed in my last, maintains that the soul is the same thing with thought, and Mr. Locke has given a pretty good proof of the contrary. Descartes asserts farther, that extension alone constitutes matter, but Sir Isaac adds solidity to it. How furiously contradictory are these opinions! Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites (Virgil).”
― Voltaire, quote from Letters on England
“Because I want to watch it die”
― Tillie Cole, quote from Sick Fux
“People have many ways to be lousy to one another, as you’ll find out when you’re older, but I think that all bad behavior stems from plain old selfishness.”
― Stephen King, quote from Revival
“...it's survival of the fittest, not the strongest or the biggest.”
― Ali Shaw, quote from The Trees
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