“My heroines are always virgins. They never go to bed without a ring on their fingers; not until page 118 at least.”

Love is next to Godliness with certain safeguards.

A woman asking ‘Am I good? Am I satisfied?’ is extremely selfish. The less women fuss about themselves, the less they talk to other women, the more they try to please their husbands, the happier the marriage is going to be.

After forty a woman has to choose between losing her figure or her face. My advice is to keep your face, and stay sitting down.

France is the only place where you can make love in the afternoon without people hammering on your door.

People don’t roll around naked in my books. I do allow them to go to bed if they’re married, but it’s all very wonderful and the moon beams.

I would love to employ a man, but how can I possibly give a man dictation from the bath?

I have always found women difficult. I don’t really understand them. To begin with, few women tell the truth.

The great majority of people in England and America are modest, decent and pure-minded and the amount of virgins in the world today is stupendous.

When you get past fifty, you have to decide whether to keep your face or your figure. I kept my face.

Every man has been brought up with the idea that decent women don’t pop in and out of bed; he has always been told by his mother that “nice girls don’t.” He finds, of course, when he gets older that this may be untrue-but only in a certain section of society.

The right diet directs sexual energy into the parts that matter.

A historical romance is the only kind of book where chastity really counts.

I’ll keep going till my face falls off.

Every woman dreams of love. When she is young she prays she will find it. When she is middle aged she hopes for it and when she is old she remembers it.

Among men, sex sometimes results in intimacy; among women, intimacy sometimes results in sex.

You become what you think. You are what you eat.

Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.

Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.

Jesus humbled himself. He went from commanding angels to sleeping in the straw. From holding stars to clutching Mary’s finger. The palm that held the universe took the nail of a soldier. Why? Because that’s what love does. It puts the beloved before itself.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on.

God’s finger touched him, and he slept.

Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He’s sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres’ gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper’s hand.