Susan Elia MacNeal > Quotes

“Jolly good!" ... King [George VI] exclaimed [after Queen Elizabeth fired the gun at Hitler's photograph]. "You got him right in the n-n-n-naughty bits."... "Good," she said. "That's where I was aiming.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“Pull yourself together. You can have a nice big breakdown after you get back to London.…”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, His Majesty's Hope

“His one indulgence was attending the occasional Chelsea Blues game”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“Please,” David said, “we’re British—we adore animals. It’s children we can’t stand. That’s why we invented boarding schools. More tea?”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prime Minister's Secret Agent

“She wasn't happy, exactly; she was still too raw for that. But she was satisfied. Satisfied and relieved, too, with maybe just a bit of joy thrown in for good measure. Yes, that was it. She'd made it through so much already. She knew now that she was strong. She'd survive. And she had friends and family to support her.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Mr. Churchill's Secretary

“Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped into the next room I am I and you are you Whatever we were to each other, That we are still. Call me by my old familiar name, Speak to me in the easy way you always used Put no difference into your tone, Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow Laugh as we always laughed At the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, Let it be spoken without effort, Without the ghost of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was, There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind Because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, Somewhere very near, Just around the corner. All is well.” When”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Mr. Churchill's Secretary

“Maggie thought about numbers. Numbers weren’t evil. Numbers, points, curves, fractions—they all existed independent of human thought and action. She missed math. She loved the order, the cool logic, the joy of solving its inevitable steps.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Mr. Churchill's Secretary

“You have a fifty-fifty chance, Hope. Probability equals the number of desirable outcomes divided by the number of possible outcomes. A coin flip. And that’s only theoretical—a big wave might take you out first—better make that one of the possible outcomes. Probability of survival dips even lower, then.…”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“If you’re poor, they call you crazy. But if you’re rich, you’re ‘eccentric.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prisoner in the Castle

“No great country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go the lengths that may be necessary. —HORACE WALPOLE,”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Eagles are not kindly birds. Some are cowardly and cruel. But the ancient race of the northern mountains were the greatest of all birds; they were proud and strong and noble-hearted.’ If that doesn’t describe the bloody Americans, I don’t know what does.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prime Minister's Secret Agent

“The Black Dog of depression was dirty and scarred, feral and rabid. He lurked in the night, yellow eyes gleaming, waiting for a chink in the armor, a weakness, a vulnerability, a memory. And then, jaws wide and fangs sharp, he would leap.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prime Minister's Secret Agent

“I’m through allowing myself to be confined to so-called ‘women’s work.’ I’m also through with patronizing men giving me half-truths and withholding information. That will end here and now.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“The Aryans—athletic like Goebbels, slim like Göring, and blond like Hitler.” Maggie”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, His Majesty's Hope

“Loose lips sink ships”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prisoner in the Castle

“Patience attains all that it strives for. He who has God finds he lacks nothing. God alone suffices.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, His Majesty's Hope

“decided to read a poem by Henry Scott Holland.” Her voice was uneven, and she took a breath and tried to steady it. “I think Paige would have liked this. And I think she would want us to think of her in this way. “Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped into the next room I am I and you are you Whatever we were to each other, That we are still. Call me by my old familiar name, Speak to me in the easy way you always used Put no difference into your tone, Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow Laugh as we always laughed At the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, Let it be spoken without effort, Without the ghost of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was, There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind Because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, Somewhere very near, Just around the corner. All is well.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Mr. Churchill's Secretary

“If a writer has any guts he should write all the time, and the lousier the world the harder a writer should work. For if he can do nothing positive, to make the world more livable or less cruel or stupid, he can at least record truly, and that’s something no one else will do, and it’s a job that must be done.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy

“Why is it that when you pick a number, any number, then double it, add 6, halve it, and take away the number you started with, your answer is always 3?”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Maggie met her own eyes in the mirror. You were afraid, she realized. But not afraid of him—afraid of being rude. Rude! Afraid of trusting your gut. How many women are raped and worse because they’ve—we’ve—been taught to be pleasant, to be a good girl, to keep the men happy?”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Queen's Accomplice

“Christopher Boothby had”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“Spycraft 101: Don’t lie if you don’t have to.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Could she see herself, someday, wearing a bridal gown, walking down an aisle—or going to a courthouse in a simple suit? Marriage was, after all, most young women’s life goal. And yet, the image left Maggie cold. That’s because you need to be in love first, dummy.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Why her husband couldn’t have simply stayed on the throne when he’d married her, she would never understand—or forgive.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“Art is like a hospital for the soul.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Hollywood Spy

“no matter how good the police are, we can only contain the violence, not diminish it. Not end it.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prisoner in the Castle

“As the Rabbi Hillel said, ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prisoner in the Castle

“As Dostoyevsky said, ‘People speak sometimes about the animal cruelty of man, but that’s terribly insulting and offensive to animals.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Prisoner in the Castle