Julia Quinn
You have to live each hour as if it's your last and each day as if you were immortal. - Kate SheffieldCollection: Each Day
Daphne," he said with controlled gentleness, "what is wrong?" She sat down opposite him and placed a hand on his cheek. "I'm so insensitive," she whispered. "I should have known. I should never have said anything." "Should have known what?" he ground out. Her hand fell away. "That you can't—that you couldn't—" "Can't what?" She looked down at her lap, where her hands were attempting to wring each other to shreds. "Please don't make me say it," she said. 'This," Simon muttered, "has got to be why men avoid marriage.Collection: Men
Nothing like trapping the gentlemen where they couldn't get away.Collection: Gentleman
He ought to buy her a new dress. She would never accept it, of course, but maybe if her current garments were accidentally burned... ...But how could he manage to burn her dress? She'd have to not be wearing it, and that posed a certain challenge in and of itself.Collection: Challenges
I have thoroughly compromised your niece," Alex declared. "Will you plase insist that she marry me?" Caroline didn't bat an eyelash. "This", she announced, "is most peculiar.Collection: Niece
This thing between them, this bond—it wasn’t just passion, and it wasn’t wicked. It was love, and it was divine.Collection: Passion
There were rules among friends, commandments, really, and the most important one was Thou Shalt Not Lust After Thy Friend's Sister.Collection: Lust
I'm not a gentle pony... I promise you, you will have to work to keep your seat.Collection: Promise
She wandered over to the enclosed range, a rather modern-looking contraption that Cook had purchased earlier in the year. "Do you know how to work this?" she asked. "No idea. You? " Daphne shook her head. "None." She reached forward and gingerly touched the surface of the stove top. "It's not hot. " " Not even a little bit? " She shook her head. "It's rather cold, actually. " Brother and sister were silent for a few seconds . " You know," Anthony finally said, "cold milk might be quite refreshing ." " I was just thinking that very thing!Collection: Brother
Most fiction series are written so that the reader can come in at any point and not feel lost, but if you can start at the beginning, why not?Collection: Why Not
What about me?” Frances asked. “The butler,” Harriet replied without even a second of hesitation. Frances’s mouth immediately opened to protest. “No, no,” Harriet said. “It’s the best role, I promise. You get to do everything.” “Except be a unicorn,” Daniel murmured. Frances tilted her head to the side with a resigned expression. “The next play,” Harriet finally gave in. “I shall find a way to include a unicorn in the one I’m working on right now.” Frances pumped both fists in the air. “Huzzah!Collection: Air
The girl doesn’t need a violin,” he added. “She needs to have her hands bound so she can never touch an instrument again.Collection: Girl
For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe its because I talk too much!Collection: Writing
Oh, Elizabeth," he murmured, leaning down to press a gentle kiss on her mouth, "I love you so much. You must believe me." "I believe you," she said softly, "because in your eyes, I see what I feel in my heart.Collection: Believe
It's just that I don't think friends tie friends to the bedpost." James choked on his tea. "Caroline, you have no idea.Collection: Thinking
It’s a curse, really,” Lady Danbury said. “I’m the only person I know my age who has perfect hearing.” “Most would call that a blessing.” She snorted. “Not with that musicale looming over the horizon.Collection: Blessing
Miss Wynter, I think you should be the evil queen,” Harriet said. “There’s an evil queen?” Daniel echoed. With obvious delight. “Of course,” Harriet replied. “Every good play has an evil queen.” Frances actually raised her hand. “And a un—” “Don’t say it,” Elizabeth growled. Frances crossed her eyes, put her knife to her forehead in an approximation of a horn, and neighed.Collection: Queens
Before she knew what she was about, she was jumping about like a crazy woman, yelling, “Yes! Yes! I win!” “You don’t win,” Anthony snapped. “Oh, it feels like I’ve won,” she reveled.Collection: Crazy
He was the firstborn Bridgerton of a firstborn Bridgerton of a firstborn Bridgerton eight times over. He had a dynastic responsibility to be fruitful and multiply.Collection: Responsibility
Anthony sneezed and pushed them aside. "Mother, I am trying to have a conversation with the duke." Violet looked at Simon. "Do you want to have this conversation with my son?" "Not particularly." "Fine, then. Anthony, be quiet.Collection: Mother
Men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will soon follow. -Lady WhistledownCollection: Men
I have to tell you it was the first time even after all these years of expecting my own death that i truly knew what it meant to die because with you gone there was nothing left for me to live for.Collection: Years
I didn't think I should die but I did not know how I would Live.Collection: Thinking
You are always looking at people like this.” And then she made a face, one he couldn’t possibly begin to describe. “If I ever look like that,” he said dryly, “precisely like that, to be more precise, I give you leave to shoot me.Collection: Giving
It's only through sheer force and luck that she's yet to take over the world.Collection: Luck
I keep waiting for the day in which everyone who loves Downton Abbey will realize they were actually watching a historical romance novel.Collection: Romance
Love is blind,” Harriet quipped. “But not illiterate,” Elizabeth retorted.Collection: Love Is
Annabel looked down. Her hands were shaking. She couldn't do this. Not yet. She couldn't face the man she'd kissed who happened to be the heir to the man she didn't want to kiss but whos she probably was going to marry. Oh yes, and she could not forget that if she did marry the man she didn't want to kiss, she was likely to provide him with a new heir, thus cutting off the man she did want to kiss.Collection: Cutting
She smelled like England, of soft rain and sun-kissed meadows. And she felt like the best kind of heaven. He wanted to wrap himself around, bury himself within her, and stay there for all of his days. He hadn’t had a drop to drink in three years, but he was intoxicated now, bubbling with a lightness he’d never thought to feel again.Collection: Rain
He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her. And he needed her now.Collection: Needed
In his heart, she’d been smiling for him. But now she was smiling at Colin Bridgerton, he of the famous charm and sparkling green eyes.Collection: Heart
This has to be the most self-centered thing I've ever said, but no, I think you just wanted to vex me.Collection: Thinking
My mother is convinced that yellow is a happy color and that a happy girl would get a husband. -Penelope FeatheringtonCollection: Marriage
Will you be quiet?" he asked, smiling down at her. She nodded. He pretended to think about it. "I don't believe you/" She planted her hands on her hips, which had to be a ludicrous postition, naked as she was from the waist up. All right," he acceded, "but the only words I'll allow from your mouth are, 'Oh, Gareth,' and 'Yes, Gareth.' He lifted his finger. What about 'More, Gareth?'" He almost kept a straith face. "That will be acceptableCollection: Believe
Why don’t you purchase an Italian dictionary? I will assume the expense.” “I have one,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s very good. Half the words are missing.” “Half?” “Well, some,” she amended. “But truly, that’s not the problem.” He blinked, waiting for her to continue. She did. Of course. “I don’t think Italian is the author’s native tongue,” she said. “The author of the dictionary?” he queried. “Yes. It’s not terribly idiomatic.Collection: Thinking
I don't like your tone," was Violet's standard answer when one of her children was winning an argument.Collection: Children
He wondered if she'd mind if he threw her down on the blanket and tore off her clothing. (..) She looked heartbreakingly innocent. Alex sighed. She'd probably mind.Collection: Mind
Milk?” Lady Bridgerton asked. “Thank you,” Gareth replied. “No sugar, if you please.” “Hyacinth takes hers with three,” Gregory said, reaching for a piece of shortbread. “Why,” Hyacinth ground out, “would he care?” “Well,” Gregory replied, taking a bite and chewing, “he is your special friend.Collection: Special
Be careful what you wish for,her mind thundered.Collection: Mind
I can’t imagine a romance novel published today where the hero rapes the heroine and she falls in love with him.Collection: Romance
It was heaven. Forget angels, forget St. Peter and glittering harpsichords. Heaven was a dance in the arms of one’s true love.Collection: Romance
You always get more respect when you don’t have a happy ending.Collection: Romance
And if you say that’s because you lot barged into her home like a herd of mentally deficient sheep, I’m disowning all three of you.Collection: Romance
Colin decided then and there that the female mind was a strange and incomprehensible organ – one which no man should even attempt to understand. There wasn’t a woman alive who could go from point A to B without stopping at C, D, X, and 12 along the way.Collection: Romance
Anthony looked down at his evil clutches – hands, he reminded himself, hands – and grinned anew.Collection: Romance
It was juvenile, he knew, this need to assign blame, but everyone had a right to childish emotions from time to time, didn’t they?Collection: Romance
This has to be the most self-centered thing I’ve ever said, but no, I think you just wanted to vex me.Collection: Romance