Laura Shepherd-Robinson > Quotes

“People like to say they seek the truth. Sometimes they even mean it. The truth is they crave the soft, quilted comfort of a lie. Tell them they’re going to be rich or fall in love, and they walk away whistling. Give them the hard, unvarnished truth, and you’re looking at trouble.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“When a man is powerful and evil, other people surround themselves with lies, until they’re not sure if they’re protecting him or protecting themselves.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“If you wanted a saint, then you should have read a different book.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“If time with those we love is measured by the hourglass, then God’s greatest cruelty is not to let us see the size of that vessel.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“Mutato nomine de te fabula narrator. Change but the name and the tale is told of you.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Ladies flee from the sight of his sword."
"I am quite sure he wouldn't want you advertising that fact.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie

“How well do you feel the book portrayed life in eighteenth-century Britain and the ever-expanding London? Did you get a sense of Britain’s place in the world, and how the British viewed themselves as a nation?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Despite all my other anxieties, as I set about the recipe--- grinding sugar, boiling it to a syrup, then clarifying it with egg white to draw off the impurities--- I tasted a sweet edge of hope. My customers often proved resistant to change, and yet this frozen delicacy promised innovation married to the familiar. After all, what could be more English than peaches and cream? I knew instinctively that it would prove more popular than Persian sherbet, and more suited to this weather than apricot tarts.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie

“Faced with their fortune, people open up like books, and if you understand the language of of souls, then you can read them.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“My father had spelt it out to me. Choice was a luxury I couldn't afford. This is your story, Red. You must tell it well.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water. —MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, DON QUIXOTE”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“Some roles we choose to play, others are chosen for us. Sometimes those roles become indistinct from our true selves.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“How did you feel about the author’s decision to use one first-person narrator? Would the book have benefited from other points of view? Or did you like the sense of being on a journey with Harry, knowing only what he knows when he knows it? How reliable was Harry as a narrator?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Did you get a sense of the tension between Britain’s reliance on slavery and the values of the Enlightenment? Are there any modern-day phenomena that this reminded you of? F”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“And yet I was already condemned to burn for my greater crime, and so I lived for this new and delicious present.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie: A Novel

“Argue the contrary and—as clever men are wont to do when a woman states her case—he’d start to look for all the ways that I might be wrong.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie: A Novel

“The common folk call it magic.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“A betrayal only acquires the name when it is known. Without that knowledge, a person might live their whole life in happy ignorance. But once it is discovered, betrayal cuts deep and is slow to heal.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie: A Novel

“His pleasure of choice, whenever he came into the Punchbowl and Pineapple, was a large nugget of Holland candy, the crystallized sugar containing glittering fragments of angelica, pistachio, ginger, and chocolate--- treasures to be mined from their sweet bedrock by a determined tongue. It is a confection for a man who takes a child's delight in the world, and I envied Twiselton his optimism about human nature, even as I scorned it.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie

“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“What were the similarities between Harry, Scipio and Tad? What were the differences?”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Interesting. It told me that class mattered to Fielding—he couldn’t bear for his amiable orphan to come from unworthy stock—”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie: A Novel

“Faced with their fortune, people open up like books, and if you understand the language of souls, then you can read them.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“I think slavery the most abhorrent design ever conceived by man. How we can all ourselves a Christian nation, I don't know. But abolition will never happen. Not in my lifetime anyway. The trade's too lucrative. And people don't just care enough about Africans on the other side of the world. (p. 38)”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

“Nine times out of ten, when a customer walks into the Punchbowl and Pineapple, I can guess what will tempt them. It is the confectioner's principal art, anticipating wants and needs--- and people betray their desires in countless small ways. For a young lady taut with nerves, dressed to make a house call, I suggest a pretty basket of French macaroons to impress her friends. For a young buck in the first flush of love, seeking a gift for his mistress, I propose a petits puits d'amour (the name and oval shape might make him smile, though I act oblivious to any indelicate connotations). For an older gentleman--- picture one crimson from hunting and port--- a rich plum cake spiced with cinnamon and mace. For a widow in mittens, a box of scented violet wafers--- or if she is bent with the rheumatism, bergamot chips. For a little boy with a cough, I prescribe a guimauve: a soft cake of honey whipped with the sap of the marsh mallow plant. And for his governess, a sweet syllabub, to be eaten at one of my tables, while she ponders how life's misfortunes brought her here.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie

“Some roles we choose to play”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“PEOPLE LIKE TO say they seek the truth. Sometimes they even mean it. The truth is they crave the warm embrace of a lie.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens

“A magistrate was not so very different from a novelist, I reflected. They both held the fate of the principal characters in their hands.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie: A Novel

“As I could have predicted, Lord Richard asked for a fluted glass of chocolat de crème, which I now served alongside a ball of chocolate iced cream flavored with a grain of ambergris and two grains of cinnamon. A rich and decadent choice for a rich and decadent man.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie

“PEOPLE LIKE TO say they seek the truth. Sometimes they even mean it. The truth is, they crave the warm embrace of a lie.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Square of Sevens