Quotes from The Reluctant Heiress

Eva Ibbotson ·  368 pages

Rating: (7.1K votes)


“I must go-- the aunts will be worried. Guy, I don't know if we will meet again, but--" Her voice broke and she tried again. "Sometimes, when you're alone and you look up at--" Once more, she had to stop. Then she managed, "If I cannot be anything else... could I be your Star Sister? Could I at least be that?"

Guy dug his nails into his palms. Everything in him rose in protest at the fey, romantic conceit. He did not want her in the heavens, linked to him by some celestial whimsy, but here and now in the flesh and after the death of the flesh, her hand in his as they rose from graves like these when the last trump sounded.

"Yes," he managed to say. "You can be my Star Sister. You can at least be that.”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from The Reluctant Heiress


“She took a deep breath, inhaling the night air scented with hay, honeysuckle and the rich waters of the lake, listened to the music and laughter coming from the theatre, tilted her head to the the stars. She had never seen them so brilliant and clear. Cassiopeia, Orion, the great girdle of the Milky Way-and her own birth sign, Gemini. With such staggering beauty in the world, how could anyone not rejoice?

It seemed however, that 'anyone' could. For at once came the age-old cry of lovers since time began. 'What are the stars if i am not gazing at them with him? What is beauty except something we share?”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from The Reluctant Heiress


“[Tessa] knew about phantom limbs [....] Her cheek, where the Englishman's fingers had been, did not exactly ache ... but very strangely, most curiously ... it felt.”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from The Reluctant Heiress


“Do I know everything about him already? she thought, bewildered. And back came the answer: Everything. You are branded with this knowledge, you will have it for the rest of time.”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from The Reluctant Heiress


“It is a fearful thing to love what time can touch.”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from The Reluctant Heiress



“The Unconscious, lately discovered by Professor Freud and used by others to store their joys, fears and frustrations, was for Nerine a gigantic subterranean wardrobe”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from The Reluctant Heiress


About the author

Eva Ibbotson
Born place: in Vienna, Austria
Born date January 21, 1925
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“You don't go into battle because you're sure of victory. You go into battle because it's the right thing to do.”
― C.J. Redwine, quote from The Shadow Queen


“From time to time, we hear physicists claim that Einstein didn’t understand Quantum Mechanics and therefore wasted his time with naive classical theories. I very much doubt that this is true. His arguments against Quantum Mechanics were extremely subtle, culminating in one of the most profound and most cited papers in all of physics.12 My guess is that Einstein was disturbed by the same thing that bothered the slow student. How could the ultimate theory of reality be about nothing more concrete than our own degree of surprise at the outcome of an experiment?”
― Leonard Susskind, quote from The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics


“She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.”
― J.M. Barrie, quote from Peter Pan (Illustrated with Interactive Elements)


“She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen.
These are only rumors, of course, and make little more than a story to tell around the fire. But it is told. And thus they live on.”
― Marie Lu, quote from The Midnight Star


“To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact and literal truth.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection


Interesting books

Order of the Seers
(256)
Order of the Seers
by Cerece Rennie Murphy
The Jewel of Medina
(1.4K)
The Jewel of Medina
by Sherry Jones
The 3 Mistakes of My Life
(57.7K)
The 3 Mistakes of My...
by Chetan Bhagat
Stories I Only Tell My Friends
(53.6K)
Stories I Only Tell...
by Rob Lowe
Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
(3K)
The White Castle
(9.2K)
The White Castle
by Orhan Pamuk

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.