Jen Bee > Jen's Quotes

“I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915.”
― Laurie R. King

“Margery," I blurted out in a passion of frustration. "I don't know what to make of you!"

Nor I you, Mary. Frankly, I cannot begin to comprehend the motives of a person who dedicates a large portion of her life to the contemplation of a God in whom she only marginally believes."

I felt stunned, as if she had struck me in the diaphragm. She looked down at me, trying to measure the effect of her words.

Mary, you believe in the power that the idea of God has on the human mind. You believe in the way human beings talk about the unknowable, reach for the unattainable, pattern their imperfect lives and offer their paltry best up to the beingless being that created the universe and powers its continuation. What you balk as it believing the evidence of your eyes, that God can reach out and touch a single human life in a concrete way." She smiled a sad, sad smile. "You mustn't be so cold, Mary. If you are, all you will see is a cold God, cold friends, cold love. God is not cold-never cold. God sears with heat, not ice, the heat of a thousand suns, heat that inflames but does not consume. You need warmth, Mary-you, Mary, need it. You fear it, you flirt with it, you imagine that you can stand in its rays and retain your cold intellectual attitude towards it. You imagine that you can love with your brain. Mary, oh my dear Mary, you sit in the hall and listen to me like some wild beast staring at a campfire, unable to leave, fearful of losing your freedom if you come any closer. It won't consume you; I won't capture you. Love does not do either. It only brings life. Please, Mary, don't let yourself be tied up by the bonds of cold academia."

Her words, the power of her conviction, broke over me like a great wave, inundating me, robbing me of breath, and, as they receded in the room, they pulled hard at me to folllow. I struggled to keep my footing against the wash of Margery's vision, and only when it began to lose its strength, dissipated against the silence in the room, was I seized by a sudden terror at the nearness of my escape.”
― Laurie R. King, A Monstrous Regiment of Women

“Do not neglect to bring your revolver, Russell. It may be needed, and it does us no good in your drawer with that disgusting cheese."
"My lovely Stilton; it's almost ripe, too. I do hope Mr. Thomas enjoys it."
"Any riper and it will eat through the woodwork and drop into the room below."
"You envy me my educated tastes."
"That I will not honour with a response. Get out the door, Russell.”
― Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice

“The hand of bone and sinew and flesh achieves its immortality in taking up a pen. The hand on a page wields a greater power than the fleshly hand ever could in life.”
― Laurie R. King, A Letter of Mary

“Stop it!'
He relented, so far as he could, stepping forward to take my head into his hands. 'Russell, once, only once, I was taken and suffered for it. Please, my dear wife, believe me, this is not the same situation...'...I turned back to Holmes and hissed, 'If you're wrong, I shall be extremely angry with you.' Then O kissed him hard on the lips, more threat than affection, and let him step back into his cell...'However, Russ? I think that, all in all, given the choice, I prefer you with the hair and without the moustache.”
― Laurie R. King, The Game

“I looked sadly at my final note on the page: July. Five whole months. An eternity.

But what did it matter? Holmes and I would go ahead as we were - as we had been before I stood on a London pier and, seeing him resurrected from a fiery death, literally embraced an unexpected future. Patience, Russelll.

And yet, I was afraid. That real life would intervene. That doubts would chew at our feet, causing one or both of us to edge away from the brink. That neither of us had really meant it, and the memory of those dockside sensations would turn to threat. That my gift to him was nothing but selfish impulse of an uncertain young girl.

I felt his gaze on me, and put on a look of good cheer before raising my face. "Of course. July will do nicely-and will give us plenty of time to arrange a distraction to get your cousin and his shot-guns away from the house."

He did not reply. Under his gaze, my smile faltered a bit. "It's fine, Holmes. You have commitments in Europe next month. I have much to do in Oxford. I will be here when you get back."

Abruptly, he jumped to his feet and swept across the room to the door. I watched him thrust his long arms into the sleeves of his overcoat. "Thursday, Russell," he said, clapping his hat onto his head. "Be ready on Thursday."

"For what?" I asked, but he was gone.

For anything, knowing him.”
― Laurie R. King, The Marriage of Mary Russell

“I had given Holmes this wedding as a gift-only to have him turn around and hand it back to me tenfold. And now his two oldest friends in all the world had conspired against our plans, casually rendering our feeble attempts at a gift into solid gold.”
― Laurie R. King, The Marriage of Mary Russell

“In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

“Eccentricty had flowered into madness.”
― Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice

“...but somehow the madness around me and the turmoil I carried within myself acted as counterweights, and I survived in the centre.”
― Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice

“He said nothing. Very sarcastically.”
― Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice

“My God, it can recognise another human being when it's hit over the head with one.”
― Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice

“I was merely going to say that I hope you realise that guilt is a poor foundation for a life, without other motivations beside it.”
― Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice

“Interpreting the Bible without training is a bit like finding a specific address in a foreign city with neither map nor knowledge of the language. You might stumble upon the right answer, but in the meantime you've put yourself at the mercy of every ignoramus in town, with no way of telling the savant from the fool.”
― Laurie R. King, A Monstrous Regiment of Women

“These last weeks, since Christmas, have been odd ones. I have begun to doubt that I knew you as well as I thought. I have even wondered if you wished to keep some part of yourself hidden from me in order to preserve your privacy and your autonomy. I will understand if you refuse to give me an answer tonight, and although I freely admit I will be hurt by such a refusal, you must not allow my feelings to influence your answer." I looked up into his face. "The question I have for you, then is this: How are the fairies in your garden?"

By the yellow streetlights, I saw the trepidation that had been building up in face give way to a flash of relief, then to the familiar signs of outrage: the bulging eyes, the purpling skin, the thin lips. He cleared his throat.

"I am not a man much given to violence," he began, calmly enough, "but I declare that if that man Doyle came before me today, I should be hard-pressed to avoid trouncing him." The image was a pleasing one, two gentlemen on the far side of middle age, one built like a bulldog and the other like a bulldong, engaging in fisticuffs. "It is difficult enough to surmount Watson's apparently endless blather in order to have my voice heard as a scientist, but now, when people hear my name, all they will think of is that disgusting dreamy-eyed little girl and her preposterous paper cutouts. I knew the man was limited, but I did not even suspect that he was insane!"

"Oh, well, Holmes," I drawled into his climbing voice. "Look on the bright side. You've complained for years how tedious it is to have everyone with a stray puppy or a stolen pencil box push through your hedges and tread on the flowers; now the British Public will assume that Sherlock Homes is as much a fairy tale as those photographs and will stop plaguing you. I'd say the man's done you a great service." I smiled brightly.

For a long minute, it was uncertain whether he was going to strike me dead for my impertinence or drop dead himself of apoplexy, but then, as I had hoped, he threw back his head and laughed long and hard.”
― Laurie R. King, A Monstrous Regiment of Women

“I could never, I knew then, lose myself "in love." Margery had accused me of coldness, and she was right, but she was also wrong: For me, for always, the paramount organ of passion was the mind. Unnatural, unbalanced, perhaps, but it was true: Without intellect, there could be no love.”
― Laurie R. King, A Monstrous Regiment of Women

“The dead have a claim on us even heavier than that of the living, for they cannot hear our explanations, and we cannot ask their forgiveness.”
― Laurie R. King, A Letter of Mary

“Oddly enough, the very considerations that had made marriage impossible for him were mirrored in my own being: a rabidly independent nature, an impatience with lesser minds, total unconventionality, and the horror of being saddled with someone who would need cosseting and protection—the”
― Laurie R. King, A Monstrous Regiment of Women

“For a man who claimed not to care much for women, Mr Holmes sure found some strong ones.”
― Laurie R. King, The Murder of Mary Russell

“Normally, one is only conscious of the room around one, but when no-one else is present, one's awareness is free to fill all the space.”
― Laurie R. King, The Language of Bees

“One must never disregard a message from the universe.”
― Laurie R. King, The Bones of Paris

“You see why I married her, Mycroft? The exquisite juxtaposition of ladylike threads and backhanded compliments proved irresistible.”
― Laurie R. King, A Letter of Mary

“A woman’s guess is much more accurate
than a man’s certainty. —RUDYARD KIPLING (1865–1936)”
― Laurie R. King, A Monstrous Regiment of Women

“but having an entire policy of ‘Us Good, Them Bad’ does little more than create a magnet for trouble-makers.”
― Laurie R. King, Island of the Mad

“When ambitious men overcome a dynasty and seize power, they inevitably adopt most of the ways of their predecessors. —THE Muqaddimah OF IBN KHALDÛN”
― Laurie R. King, O Jerusalem

“Love was the thing that kept a person going past exhaustion, beyond reason, after hope was at its end. Grit,”
― Laurie R. King, The Murder of Mary Russell

“You think the knife was used, cleaned, then scraped through the blood on the floor?” Lestrade asked. “Evidently.” “Why do that?” “Chief Inspector, I try to form my hypotheses upon data, rather than shape the data to match my wishes.” And”
― Laurie R. King, The Murder of Mary Russell

“Madam, there is no treachery in the truth. There may be pain, but to face honestly all possible conclusions formed by a set of facts is the noblest route possible for a human being.” Holmes could be surprisingly empathetic at times, and his words now had a gentling effect on the lady.”
― Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper's Apprentice

“Why was the mind said to have an eye and not a hand, or a tongue? Perhaps touch, taste, odour, sound were linked to the heart rather than the intellect.”
― Laurie R. King, Locked Rooms

“No doubt after the emperor was overthrown in 1911, your gardener would have joined the rest of the world in cutting the queue and taking on the laws and customs of his adoptive land. Before that, his assuming Western dress would have been dangerous for his family in China.”
― Laurie R. King, Locked Rooms