The collection / 37 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

SearchTypeTopicEraCulture / collection labelCountry attributionTraditionOrder

Author

Leave empty for every voice. Browse all authors ↗

Reset

Culture labels and country attributions follow the source collections; earliest origins may be unknown.

37 results · Page 2 of 2Play this collection ▷

01Undated

...You, you look -- bien -- exactly what you were, a high-ranking British officer, used to unwavering obedience and with the air of a Greek god, gazing down on us mere mortals.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

02Undated

The soldier in the portrait had been a respected and admired officer...The man he had become was fighting a different battle now. He had his demons, just as she had her ghosts.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

03Undated

You! That is what is behind this. Ever since you -- As if I didn't have enough on my mind without having to lie awake thinking of you and your damned kisses and your damned questions.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

04Undated

Maman’s life was an unfinished book. Celeste had to discover the ending, and then she could close the cover for ever.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

05Undated

Where is your Revolutionary spirit?""Beheaded," Celeste said.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

06Undated

Celeste committed the cardinal sin of leaning across Jack's arm. "You will excuse me, Madam, but I have something most particular to say to Monsieur Trestain.""That was rude," jack said, though he was smiling."No doubt you thought her very beautiful.""No doubt that is what you think I thought.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

07Undated

Celeste rejoined him. "How you ladies do love a bargain," he said."You were listening!""I left before you shared the secrets of your undergarments." Jack looked sheepish. "That didn't sound quite how I intended."Celeste blushed. "You should not have mentioned it at all. A lady's undergarments are not a fit topic for a gentleman to discuss at a military dinner.""Actually," he retorted, "you would be surprised at how often the subject comes up.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

08Undated

But the pain, the tearing blackness, the white heat of his uncontrollable fury, the terror that made him run from himself, the sweats and the shakes, and the dull ache in his head, they were all too real. ~~~~She kissed him to stop the words babbling out. She was in love. “Jack,” she said, because it was all she could trust herself to say. “Jack.” She loved him. She kissed his eyelids. She loved him.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

09Undated

Celeste grabbed his arm. “You see, you are running away from the truth. Why won’t you talk about it?”“Take your hands off me. Now.”She had gone too far. She knew it would be insane to push him further, but she knew with certainty that was exactly what she was going to do. Celeste tilted her head and met his stormy eyes. “No.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

10Undated

She had always swum alone. She had never swum in the company of a man, and this man -- She dragged her eyes away again...."Go in. I will follow you but don't look."Jack laughed. "I never make promises I can't keep," he said.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

11Undated

I supposed you've already kissed him? Don't deny it, that guilty look is a complete giveaway. Did you like it?" "Felicity!" "Well?" "Yes." Ainsley laughed. "Yes, I did." "Was it a good kiss? The kind of kiss to give you confidence that your Mr. Drummond would know what he was doing? The kind of kiss that made you want him to do more than kiss you?

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

12Undated

My father prided himself on maintaining traditions that were hundreds of years old. You'll feel as if you've stepped back into the eighteenth century." Her brows lifted in surprise. He could see the wheels turning in her clever brain, but she chose merely to nod, and perversely, though he knew he would not like it, he wanted to know what she was thinking. "Go on. Say it." "It is nothing. Only - you are very much a man of the nineteenth century." "You mean you're not surprised I left such a backward place." "Such a backward place must be crying out for a man like you." Ainsley pushed her windswept hair out of her eyes.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗

13Undated

Kissing gave a man all sorts of immoral ideas. Such ideas were, in Madame Hera's world, the province only of men. That Ainsley herself had had ideas - her mind boggled, trying to imagine what Madame would say to that. In fact, those very ideas cropped up in several of the letters Felicity had forwarded to her, variously referred to as 'unnatural desires,' 'longing,' 'carnal stirrings,' fever of the blood,' 'indecent thoughts' and even, memorably, 'an irrepressible need to scratch an itch.

Marguerite Kaye / quote

↗