01c. 1954 ADMy mother? My own mother told my lady governess that if the baby and I were in danger then they should save the baby.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
02c. 1954 ADMother, before God," I say, my voice shaking with tears, "I swear that I have to believe that there is more for me in life than being wife to one man after another, and hoping not to die in childbirth!Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
03c. 1954 ADBe a wife of whom he can make no complaint, Margaret. That is the best advice I can give to you. You will be his wife; that is to be his servant, his possession. He will be your master. You had better please him.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
04c. 1954 ADLike almost all girls I don't know the date of my birth: my parents did not trouble to record the day and the time. I only know the year and the season, and I only know the season because my mother had a great desire for asparagus when she was carrying me and swears that she ate it too green and her bellyache brought on my birth.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
05c. 1954 ADEvery woman is a mad ugly bad old witch somewhere in her heart.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
06c. 1954 ADYour son is heir to an enormous fortune and name. Someone would be bound to bid for you him and take him as his ward.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
07c. 1954 ADWhen a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
08c. 1954 ADA woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even if she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
09c. 1954 ADPerhaps we will not be great people, chosen by God, but just happy.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
10c. 1954 ADThis is George, my beloved George. D'you think I want to go to my grave knowing that at the moment of his trial he looked around and saw no one lift a finger for him? If it is the death of me, I shall go to him.""Go then," he said. "Kiss our baby good-bye before you go, and Henry. I shall tell Catherine that you left your blessing for her. And kiss me farewell. For if you go into that courtroom you will never come out alive.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
11c. 1954 ADHe is my brother," I said. "I cannot desert him.""You can go to your own death," William said. "Or you can survive this, bring up your children, and guard Anne's little girl who will be shamed and bastardized and motherless by the end of this week. You can wait out this reign and see what comes next. See what the future holds for the Princess Elizabeth, defend our son Henry against those who will want to set him up as the king's heir or even worse-flaunt him as a pretender. You owe it to your children to protect them.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
12c. 1954 ADKatherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
13c. 1954 ADIf a woman is interested in her own struggle into identity and power, then she will be interested in other women. The lives of these, and other women, show me what a woman can do even without formal power, education, or rights, in a world dominated by men. They are inspirational examples of the strength of the female spirit.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
14c. 1954 ADI will stand up and speak in my own voice and no man will ever silence me again.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
15c. 1954 ADI feel no peace, I feel nothing. I think I will feel nothing forever.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
16c. 1954 ADSay yes,’ he whispers. ‘Marry me.’I hesitate. I open my eyes. ‘You will get my fortune,’ I remark. ‘When I marry you, everything I have becomes yours. Just as George has everything that belongs to Isabel.’‘That’s why you can trust me to win it for you,’ he says simply. ‘When your interests and mine are the same, you can be certain that I will care for you as for myself. You will be my own. You will find that I care for my own.’‘You will be true to me?’‘Loyalty is my motto. When I give my word, you can trust me.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
17c. 1954 ADMen command the world that they know . Everything that men know they make their own. Everything that they learn, they claim for themselves. They are like the alchemists who took for the laws that govern the world, and then want to own them and keep them secret. Everything they discover,they hug to themselves: they shape knowledge into their own selfish image. What is left to us women but the realms of the unknown?Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
19c. 1954 ADI felt his hardness and I suddenly understood-an older girl would have understood long before-that this was the currency of desire. He was my betrothed. he desired me. I desired him. All I had to do was tell him the truth.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
20c. 1954 ADDo you really think that God in his heaven with all the angels, there from the beginning of time and looking towards the day of judgement day, really looks down on all the world and see's you and little harry and says 'whatever you choose to do is my will?' "Yes i do." she says uncertainly.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
21c. 1954 ADThey are a couple in love, and anyone but a fool would see it is simply that, nothing more- and certainly nothing less.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
22c. 1954 ADWe are not ordered by God to judge each other. We are not even ordered by him to consider another person's sin. We are ordered by God to let Him consider it, to let Him be judge.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
23c. 1954 ADFor a moment we glared at each other, stubborn as cats on the stable wall, full of mutual resentment and something darker, the old sense between sisters that there is only really room in the world for one girl. The sense that every fight could be to the death.Philippa Gregory / quote ↗
24c. 1954 ADYou have to choose the best, every day, without compromise...guided by your own virtue and highest ambitionPhilippa Gregory / quote ↗
