Historical Fiction Quotes

A little truth seasons a lie like salt.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Humans will never be in charge of this world, as long as dust and weeds do as they please.

~ Nancy B. Brewer

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.

~ Diana Gabaldon

Good men are often more practical than pretty said Mother. Andrius just happens to be both.

~ Ruta Sepetys

How did I get here How did I end up in the arms of a boy I barely knew but knew I didn't want to lose I wondered what I would have thought of Andrius in Lithuania. Would I have liked him Would he have liked me

~ Ruta Sepetys

Sonetimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself.

~ Sarah Sundin

My love for you won't stop with my leaving. Come an evening over the years, when you step outside your door and hear the wind blowing through the cottonwoods, that'll be me, thinking of you, whispering your name, and loving you.

~ Penelope Williamson

I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die I would die with you.Someone like you, young as I am, I saw so many dying near me in the last year. I didn’t feel scared. Icertainly wasn’t brave just now. I thought to myself, We have this villa this grass, we should have laindown together, you in my arms, before we died. I wanted to touch that bone at your neck, collarbone,it’s like a small hard wing under your skin. I wanted to place my fingers against it. I’ve always liked fleshthe colour of rivers and rocks or like the brown eye of a Susan, do you know what that flower is? Haveyou seen them? I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep. I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye againstyour collarbone I just want to close my eyes without thinking of others, want to find the crook of a treeand climb into it and sleep. What a careful mind! To know which wire to cut. How did you know? Youkept saying I don’t know I don’t know, but you did. Right? Don’t shake, you have to be a still bed forme, let me curl up as if you were a good grandfather I could hug, I love the word ‘curl,’ such a slowword, you can’t rush it...

~ Michael Ondaatje

Long ago she'd clamped an iron shell around her heart and nothing and no one could pry it lose, but deep inside the tender flesh still beat.

~ Sarah Sundin

She had wanted more than she could have.She had wanted him, and more... she had wanted him to want her.In the name of something bigger than tradition, bolder than reputation, more important than a silly title.

~ Sarah Maclean

I intend to marry Michael, and squander all his money and run his life, and make sure he never again consorts with wicked women or gambles with licentious men. I promise I will henpeck him until he has no life beyond what I allow him, and when we die, I will lie in his arms through all eternity.

~ Christina Dodd

{Summertime she speaks of winter, she eats ham, but speaks of beef, got a good man but, flirts with another. She might as well go to hell, cause she ain't gonna be happy in heaven either!}

~ Nancy B. Brewer

Midnight Omen Deja vu - Because everyone should experience love in the Caribbean...at least once in a lifetime.

~ Marti Melville

True vice, my lady, would frighten us all, if it did not wear the mask of virtue. (p.56)

~ Emery Lee

Brick walls towered over her. Decrepit staircases crowded about her. Nothing had changed. The line there, the lessons there, the rape there. Shouldn't the place be crimson with blood and black with shame?

~ Sarah Sundin

She raised her head and saw a squadron of fighter planes. She stretched her hand high as if she could grab hold and climb away from what she had done, from who she was.

~ Sarah Sundin

She turned her painted blue eyes toward the assistant and said something in French before she left.

~ Nancy B. Brewer

All things in Fiji are paid for in blood.

~ Lance Morcan

He watched the newly arrived commuters as they stepped into the carriage, pushed their way down the tube, the odours from their damp clothes mingling, giving off varying degrees of mustiness: London grime, or smoke from airless offices. A woman wearing a blue swing coat glanced along the carriage, casting around for an empty seat. Her pale skin, the searching green eyes, reminded him of Emma. Briefly, he felt his breath catch; he stood, clambered back over his neighbour and indicated for her to take his seat. And so his mind stayed with Emma when he knew he should be working out a strategy for telling Dorothy of his news. But Emma was never far away; like the glitter balls in dance halls, she would slowly rotate in his memory, different facets reappearing, as the hues changed in her auburn hair.

~ Amanda Sington-Williams

Kevin looks at me and I know he isn’t seeing the little girl I use to be, all pigtails and gangly limbs. He isn’t seeing my mother’s daughter or even my mother anymore. As his eyes linger over me, stopping here and there in the most uncomfortable places, I know he isn’t really even seeing me as I am. The bloodshot eyes staring out of the alcohol-flushed face are seeing a girl, nearly of age, who owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.--Rocky Evans

~ Gwenn Wright

For the space of many, many years, you were enough for me. You were my bliss, and my hallelujah.

~ Lise Arin

I stand now at a crossroads. I see before me the route to virtue, at an intersection with the route to love. Do I step to the left or the right, to the wrong or the right? M foot wavers in the air; where shall I set it down?

~ Lise Arin

Whatever befalls us, we will endure it together. I clutch my longbow and dagger close to my side. My last thoughts linger on my husband and my boy. I will not let harm come to either of them.

~ Mark Noce

Oh honey, someday a real man is going to make you see stars and you won't even be looking at the sky. Excerpt from Grace Willow's Last Minute Bride

~ Grace Willows

My wishing star glowed slightly and winked back at me. I could almost hear its voice, tinkling like wind chimes and church bells, reassuring me that everything would return to normal.

~ Erica Sehyun Song

I am German, yes, but I am not a Nazi. There is a difference, and one day I hope you understand that.

~ Caroline Leech

How many times can a heart be shattered and still be pieced back together? How many times before the damage is irreparable?

~ Gwenn Wright

Time is a funny thing. You can go through it and meddle with it, but nothing can stay permanent. So even if everything so far had not happened, time would still have managed to find a way to make all this happen.

~ Erica Sehyun Song

I felt so much older now, so much more responsible. I guess that there were some positive outcomes: I knew more things than usual, and I knew that I really could accomplish anything and everything. But sometimes, all a fifteen-year-old girl wants is to stop growing. She wants time to slow down and eventually stand still where she can be young and inexperienced forever. Sometimes, she simply wants to remain a child.

~ Erica Sehyun Song

And then I knew that despite all the pain and hard work all of us had gone through, despite the sadness and anger we felt, in the end, everything was going to be fine. But I did not know when the end was, or if it was even near. But that did not matter. I preferred to look towards it in anticipation rather than worry about it. One new day equalled to one new adventure. And right now, I still had plenty of days left in my life. So I did not decide to sit down and plan out my life. Instead, I decided to sit back, relax, and see where life would take me.

~ Erica Sehyun Song

It's true. I doubt. I doubt because I seek the truth. Doubt has served me well.

~ Bradley Steffens

A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.

~ Jane Yolen

Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.

~ Louis L'amour

Oscar always said that books are truly our best friends. He said that they never think poorly of us and that they always have a shoulder for us to cry on or relieve stress. They take our minds away from the real world by telling us captivating stories. When we look back at our choice of books, we can nostalgically recall our younger years.

~ Erica Sehyun Song

And once you've been to this Center, this Truth, you'll know your way everywhere. You are never lost again.

~ David Housholder

Tethered to the universe by tendrils of history, with threads of continuity descending to God knows where, I see that I'm more than the dust I'll become. This quote is from my novel, Whispers from St. Mary's Well. Many readers have said that, like the fictional narrator of the story, Carrie Rose Stillwell, they felt a deep connection to the universe through past, present, and future experiences, after reading the story of a child who communicates with future generations.

~ Carol Kenny

I know a feeling like that only comes once in a lifetime, and I think you should follow your heart’s desires. I believe in love, and I know love conquers all.

~ Ahmad Ardalan

Every great day has a story and a song!

~ Faith Reese Martin

There was a sudden flash of lightning which brightly illuminated our faces. I squinted against the harsh light. It was soon followed by the crack of thunder. The strong wind whipped our hair around our faces, and the younger girls squealed as they quickly ran across the grass to get inside the school. Rose and I sat up, smiles on our faces as we listened to the weather’s dangerous melody. The third flash of lightning finally ripped open the sky’s belly. Freezing rain cascaded out, drenching us in a matter of seconds, the flower garlands drooping and lying limp on our matted hair.

~ Erica Sehyun Song

The two of us locked up our own little secrets from the real world. We had experienced countless sleepless nights when we would share our fears, our worries, and our passions; when we would gossip about the school and the other girls. We had played too many pranks and snuck out more than enough times to be expelled if the teachers ever found out. We were professionals at the art of being discreet; however, we had never found sneaking out of a residence necessary, especially when the reason was not to play a prank.

~ Erica Sehyun Song