“The past was always there, lived inside of you, and it helped to make you who you were. But it had to be placed in perspective. The past could not dominate the future.”

I am a huge admirer of Elizabeth I, and this intriguing biography gives a wonderful picture of the era.

Successful women don’t sleep until noon.

Edwina always enjoyed a morning ride. Some mornings she rode the horse, and some mornings she rode the groom.

I work eight hours a day, but I’m not writing all that time. I’m thinking, editing, looking something up. Thinking is what I do a lot of.

We are each the authors of our own lives, Emma. We live in what we have created. There is no way to shift the blame and no one else to accept the accolades.

This parting cannot be for long; for those who love as we do cannot be parted. We shall always be united in thought, and thought is a great magnet. I have often spoken to thee of reason, now i speak to thee of faith

What is done can never be undone.

Bookstores see a book by a woman and they put it in the romance section.

Elizabeth studied the blurry tabloid photo, which showed her cousin Mary Stuart leaving a Paris disco at dawn, drunkenly clinging to the arm of a French tennis pro. The message was very clear. Put passion first and you end up neither loved nor respected.

My dear girl, you must cultivate a taste for the finer things. Civilized pleasures give meaning to life.

Priceless things matter not for their value, but because they offer us an enduring reminder of stability and permanence.

Even the most powerful woman needs a place to unwind.

When you are a strong woman, you will attract trouble. When a man feels threatened, there is always trouble.

In my opinion, moderation is a vastly overrated virtue, particularly when applied to work

I will never stop writing. People often ask when I will retire, but I say it’s none of their business. Writing defines who I am. I love the feeling of holding a finished book in my hands, and then I can’t wait to start the great adventure of writing the next one.

Elizabeth lay face-down on the massage table, and allowed Marco to relieve the stress of the business day with firm and knowing fingers. Success, she decided, was often a matter of knowing when to relax.

There’s an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the “Aha.”

And that’s not going to be achieved by shouting at them to convert or they’ll go to hell.

I think if Tottenham are going to be top four side.

You can feel it coming and you can see where it is going to take you but you are powerless, utterly powerless to stop it. I know now.

No matter what you do or where you are, you’re going to be missing out on something.

You’re going to start stamping out a lot of things that are going on in football.

That level of expectation that I’m going to be conservative is really disappointing, but it is how many people think about clergy and the church

But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.