“The world is chaotic. All artists know this, but they try to make sense of it. Sophia has made sense of it for him. She has stitched it together like the most beautiful cloak. Her love has sewn it together and they can wrap it around themselves and be safe from the world. Nobody can reach them.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“Sophia will not come. How mad he is to imagine, for a moment, that she might. Why should she risk everything for him? He can offer her nothing, only love.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“Even when I succeed in getting there we only have an hour. At ten o’clock the night-watch trumpet sounds and those who are out return to bed. What a blameless, hardworking nation we are. In bed by ten, faithful husbands and faithful wives. It is no city for lovers, for those out late on the street are viewed with suspicion.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“After the storm the city lies becalmed. It is a sunny morning, still and cold. Branches litter the streets like broken limbs. People clear away the wreckage. They swarm around like ants whose anthill has been scuffed; how doggedly they rebuild their lives.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“I’m like a mussel, closed in my shell. It’s only you who can open me.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“It is a nice sunny day; his bunions have stopped hurting. There is always something to celebrate, in Gerrit’s view.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“But you have to be courageous, my friend, and unafraid of pain. For only through pain will the beauty of the world be revealed.’’ He”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“There's no such thing as an ugly woman, just not enough brandy. - Jan Van Loos”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“Conduct thyself always with the same prudence as though thou went observed by ten eyes and pointed at by ten fingers. —CONFUCIUS”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“Next to me she seems like a clean blackboard, whereas I am full of crossed-out scribbles that I can no longer decipher.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“We use God to justify our actions when in fact it is our own instinct for survival that pushes us on.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“Our task is not to solve enigmas, but to be aware of them, to bow our heads before them and also to prepare the eyes for never-ending delight and wonder.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“Your faith is like putty. How easily you mold it to your own desires.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“There’s no such thing as an ugly woman, just not enough brandy. Of”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“All life is a risk—I’m a physician, I’m only too well aware of that. But some people sail closer to the wind and they are the ones after my own heart. I admire them for that, you see, because I have been incapable of doing it myself.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“It is this sexual excess, no doubt, that has caused Jan to neglect his work. Lots of spermatozoa enfeebles a man and thins his blood. - Jacob”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“The Dutch are a hardworking, resourceful people; when their land is flooded they pump out the water and drain it again. They are used to repairing the ravages caused by the wrath of God, for He has sent these tempests to test them.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from Tulip Fever
“You know how to steer a yacht?" Mr. McIntyre asked Ian worriedly.
"I was born knowing how to steer a yacht," Ian said. Then a stricken look came over his face. "But–do you suppose Jonah prepaid the full amount for renting this? Once my dad hears what Natalie and I did, he'll cancel our credit cards."
"You mean we're...we're poor now?" Natalie gasped.
"Penniless," Ian said grimly.
"Actually," Mr. McIntyre said, "I should have mentioned this before the others left. Grace had an addendum to her will regarding everyone who made it through the gauntlet. There were eight of you–you will all receive double the amount you turned down to get the first clue."
"It was a million dollars originally," Ian said. "So Natalie and I each get two million dollars? I suppose we could live on that."
Natalie beamed.
"That is such a relief!" she said. "Being poor wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, but still–"
"You were only poor for about two seconds!" Dan protested, rolling his eyes.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, quote from Into the Gauntlet
“Erasmus says that you should praise a ruler even for qualities he does not have. For the flattery gives him to think. And the qualities he presently lacks, he might go to work on them.”
― Hilary Mantel, quote from Bring Up the Bodies
“He read political books. They gave him phrases which he could only speak to himself and use on Shama. They also revealed one region after another of misery and injustice and left him feeling more helpless and more isolated than ever. Then it was that he discovered the solace of Dickens. Without difficulty he transferred characters and settings to people and places he knew. In the grotesques of Dickens everything he feared and suffered from was ridiculed and diminished, so that his own anger, his own contempt became unnecessary, and he was given strength to bear the most difficult part of his day: dressing in the morning, that daily affirmation of faith in oneself, which at times for him was almost like an act of sacrifice.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“Reading is my favourite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from Agnes Grey
“Tonight," he said, "we shall get quietly and thoroughly drunk...in memory of all that was lost. And on the morrow, I begin the struggle to win it back.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from The Reckoning
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