Anne Boleyn Quotes

“I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult. And you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be! What man can resist us?”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“I was born to be your rival,' she [Anne] said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters, aren't we?”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“If I must die, then I will die boldly, as I have lived.”
― Carolyn Meyer, Doomed Queen Anne

“When it's done, it's done. And no one will know until it's done.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“He was so much in love with me that I could have asked him for the moon and stars, and he would have gathered them for me.”
― Carolyn Meyer, Doomed Queen Anne

“But Anne, do you love him?" I asked curiously.

The curve of her hood hid all but the corner of her smile. "I am a fool to own it, but I am in a fever for his touch.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“What had happened to our love? Somehow it had faded, or worn out, or simply withered away.”
― Carolyn Meyer, Doomed Queen Anne

“My new world is etched in diamonds and sealed in gold, drowning in pretension.”
― Dawn Ius, Anne & Henry

“Her unusual dark hair and sultry eyes made her stand out--- Anne Boleyn was Tudor England's Angelina Jolie amid a sea of Reese Witherspoons.”
― Kris Waldherr, Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, From Cleopatra to Princess Di

“Love overcame reason...I had rather beg my bread with him than to be the greatest queen christened.”
― Carolyn Meyer, Doomed Queen Anne

“Seduce me. Write letters to me. And poems, I love poems. Ravish me with your words. Seduce me.”
― Anne Boleyn, The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn with Notes

“The king greeted the document (the Collectanea) not so much as a drowning man greets a straw but as he might a rescue party from outer space.”
― Eric Ives

“Pobre Katherine Howard. Ella yace en el frío suelo junto a mí. Pero fuimos como dos mariposas nocturnas atraídas a la llama y quemadas.”
― Anne Boleyn

“For I chase but one hind, he says, one strange deer timid and wild, and she leads me off the paths that other men have trod, and by myself into the depths of the wood.”
― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

“The whore or the saint: these seemed to be the prototypes set up by the Church's historic misogyny. But was there no alternative model to follow?

Yes, for Anne had seen for herself that it was possible to be an independent thinker, set free from the pattern of sinful Eve or patient Griselda. She had been in the company of clever, strong-willed women like the Regent Margaret of Austria and Margaret of Navarre. The influence of evangelism had enabled women of character to take an alternative path, one that offered Anne Boleyn a different future.”
― Joanna Denny, Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen

“When they launch snakes, you will have your namesake.”
― Philippa Gregory

“Her head rolled but a little way from her body, and I could see her lips still moving in silent prayer for a few moments while the blood pumped outward from the body and from the head. I was stuck firm in my place by the horror of it, jarred loose only by the clattering of Nan Zouche and Alice as they ran up the stairs with linen. I quickly leaned down and picked up her head, eyes still open and aware as the linen slipped from them, as they looked at me. I willed the bile back down my throat and forced myself to look into those eyes with love for the few moments before awareness dimmed from them.
Within seconds, she slipped away. I took the head into the smallest and finest of linens and carefully wrapped it, her blood running thickly between my fingers, under my nails, and staining my forearms as I sought to save her from any indignity.”
― Sandra Byrd, To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn

“The story was certainly current at court, and in 1535 a Member of Parliament, Sir George Throckmorton, accused Henry to his face of 'meddling' with both Anne's mother and sister Mary.
'Never with the mother,' Henry said.”
― Alison Weir, Henry VIII: The King and His Court

“Henry's going to dump me, and I didn't even do anything. He's making it all up because he wants to get rid of me and everybody knows and nobody cares.”
― Hannah Capin, The Dead Queens Club

“Di che natura è il limite fra la verità e la menzogna? È permeabile e sfocato, poiché è disseminato di voci, dicerie, malintesi e storie alterate. La verità può buttare giù i cancelli, può urlare per strada; se però non è piacevole, gradita e facile da accettare, è condannata a piagnucolare davanti alla porta di servizio.”
― Hilary Mantel , Bring Up the Bodies

“Il re si siede e comincia a parlare, a sproloquiare. In quegli ultimi dieci anni e più Anna lo ha preso per mano e lo ha portato nella foresta. Lì, al margine del bosco, dove la luce del giorno si frantuma e filtra tra il verde, lui ha perso il senno, l'innocenza. Anna si è fatta rincorrere tutto il giorno, finché lui tremava sfinito, eppure non riusciva a fermarsi neanche per riprendere fiato, non poteva tornare indietro, aveva perso la strada. L'ha inseguita fino al tramonto, l'ha cercata alla luce delle torce. Poi lei gli si è scagliata contro, ha spento le torce e l'ha lasciato da solo nel buio.”
― Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

“Always, I sensed the difference between others and myself in the power of my emotions, and felt ashamed that I was less calm than Mary, and less able than George to view matters with level-headedness. It was so difficult for me. I was too easily carried away and wished to hide this, for expression of feelings always drew frowns or gasps, and was generally viewed as something base and common, as well as inappropriate. I prayed often that God might make me good.”
― Nell Gavin, Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn

“Remove the crown and the fine clothes, and you’re left with a fairly ordinary man.”
― Alison Weir, Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

“I would rather a simple ploughman could read it and make up his own mind than see the Church continue to manipulate the Bible to its own ends.”
― Alison Weir, Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

“Try me good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges… My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace’s displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen, whom (as I understand) are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your sight; if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, let me obtain this request. (A letter to King Henry   VIII from the Tower, attributed to Anne Boleyn)”
― Natalie Grueninger, The Final Year of Anne Boleyn

“The White Falcon by Stewart Stafford

Trampled pomegranate underfoot,
Fervent ascent of anatine steps,
To the alabaster falcon's chamber,
Viperine slither as a king's retinue.

Roman breakage for a concubine,
Stillbirths piled on a spiral staircase,
Skewered tongues spitting smears,
Spurious sparks fanned to an inferno.

Denounced in the toxic public mind,
Cast into a wolf pit by kangaroo court,
Blood money to the Gallic executioner,
Her headless ghost in a centuries' limbo.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Katherine is my death and I am hers.”
― Alison Weir, Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

“Without Henry, she was nothing, and the wolves would be waiting to pounce . . .”
― Alison Weir, Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

“In cutting her life so short and then ruthlessly disposing of the body of evidence of her "real" existence, Henry made it possible for her to live a hundred different lives, forever.”
― Susan Bordo, The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen