Sharon Kay Penman > Quotes

“I inhale hope with every breath I take.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“…she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“I should like to freeze in time all those I do love...Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!”
― Sharon Kay Penman

“We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“...A scar signifies past pain, a wound that did not heal as it ought. But it testifies, too, to survival...(Here be Dragons)”
― Sharon Kay Penman

“Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Time and Chance

“Poor Wales. So far from Heaven, so close to England.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Here Be Dragons

“I’ll admit that my garden now grows hope in lavish profusion, leaving little room for anything else. I suppose it has squeezed out more practical plants like caution and common sense. Still, though, hope does not flourish in every garden, and I feel thankful it has taken root in mine.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Reckoning

“There is nothing worse than an enemy with imagination.”
― Sharon Kay Penman

“Men are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“For every wound, the ointment of time.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“I should like to freeze in time all those I do love, keep them somehow safe from the ravages of the passing years..."Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“…a cynic who was still saddened whenever his jaundiced view of mankind was confirmed...”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“The great hall was shimmering in light, sun streaming from the open windows, and ablaze with colour, the walls decorated with embroidered hangings in rich shades of gold and crimson. New rushes had been strewn about, fragrant with lavender, sweet woodruff, and balm... the air was... perfumed with honeysuckle and violet, their seductive scents luring in from the gardens butterflies as blue as the summer sky.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Devil's Brood

“I think the day might come, Bess, when all men will know of Dickon is what they were told by Tudor historians like Rous."
"Jesú, no!" Bess sounded both appalled and emphatic. "You mustn't think that. Whatever the lies being told about Dickon now, surely the truth will eventually win out. Scriptures does say that 'Great is truth and it prevails,' and I believe that, Grace."
Bess straightened up in the bed, shoved yet another pillow against her back. "I have to believe that," she said quietly. "Not just for Dickon's sake, but for us all. For when all is said and done, the truth be all we have.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“During the day, memories could be held at bay, but at night, dreams became the devil's own accomplices.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Reckoning

“It was just like him, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him; she found herself believing in happy endings, too.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“Richard, might I ask you something? We've talked tonight of what you must do, of what you can do, of what you ought to do.But we've said nothing of what you want to do.Richard, do you want to be King?"
At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. But as she studied his face, she saw he was turning her question over in his mind, seeking to answer it as honestly as he could.
"Yes," he said at last. "Yes...I do.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Richard knew, of course, that his was thought to be an unlucky title; only twice before had a Richard ruled England, and both met violent ends.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Why is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does?”
― sharon kay penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“The art of governing, Dickon, is that of making use of talent wherever you do find it. Trust is too rare an attribute to make it your prime prerequisite for holding office. If I relied only upon those I truly do trust, we'd have a council of empty chairs!”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Edward was now expressing himself on the subject of the French King, drawing upon a vocabulary that a Southwark brothel-keeper might envy. Some of what he was saying was anatomically impossible, much of it was true and all of it envenomed.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Devil's Brood

“Men kill for many reasons, they steal but for one-greed.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Falls the Shadow

“There's not a man alive who doesn't know fear, Dickon. The brave man is the one who has learned to hide it, that's all”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“...Life without sinning was like food without salt, pure but tasteless.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“Francis stared down at the Duchess of York's letter. He swallowed, then read aloud in a husky voice, "It was showed by John Sponer that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City."
As Margaret listened, the embittered grey eyes had softened, misted with sudden tears.
"My brother may lie in an untended grave," she said, "but he does not lack for an epitaph.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“In time of war, the Devil makes more room in Hell.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept

“What do you know of sacrifice? Need I tell you of York's dead . . . of Sandal Castle? My brother did survive the battle, his first. He was seventeen and he entreated them to spare his life. They cut his throat. Their heads were then impaled on York's Micklegate Bar to please the House of Lancaster, to please a harlot and a madman. She had my father's head crowned with straw and she left a spike between the two. . . . That one, she said, was for York's other son.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“What shall we drink to, Ned? To England?"

"I've a better thought than that. It is not precisely the season for it, with Epiphany still four days hence, and I daresay our lady mother would never forgive me for saying it! But blasphemy or not, I think it fitting, nonetheless."

He touched his cup to the one Richard now held. "To the Resurrection," he said.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour