Historical Romance Quotes

Cleverness is like rouge - liberal application makes a woman look common and desperate. Wit is knowing how to apply it.

~ Tessa Dare

Darcy looked at Graham for the first time in months, and realized that her memory had not done him justice. He was gold and bronze, perfect like a statue. His eyes were ice blue. They were eyes that could pierce a man's resolve, and probably had many times. But not now. Now they assessed her, ice fading to liquid sky...

~ Olivia Stocum

It was awful, this love.

~ Eloisa James

I’m a man of words, yet you rob me of them every single time.

~ Joanna Shupe

In another minute or two, those men would have tossed your skirts in that alley right there... if you were wearing skirts! You should be thanking me for saving your sorry hide! By my calculations, that’s twice in one day.

~ Melissa Lurquette

This wasn't her first kiss. He could tell that much, though he doubted any of the young men who'd kissed her had known what the hell they were doing. He felt a vague, stupid sort of rage toward them. It made him all the more resolved to make this kiss sublime. Sufficiently long and slow and sweet and deep to obliterate those embraces from her memory.From this day forward-when she thought of kisses, she would think only of him.

~ Tessa Dare

He couldn't escape it. She'd begun re-calibrating his senses the moment she came through that library door. His peripheral vision was now trained for flashes of golden hair: his ears, trained for her melodic laugh. He found himself following the drifting scent of her soap and dusting powder, like a dog panting after the butcher's wife.

~ Tessa Dare

Call it what you like, my lady, but it is still spying.

~ Jessie Clever

The woman was not what would be termed an exquisite, or what his grandfather’s generation would have styled ‘a diamond of the first water.’ There was something too primal in her features and her bearing, and her aura shimmered with power. She was a sunset on a mountain peak, or the eerie colors in the sky in the far north of Scotland. She was a vein of gold still glittering inside the rock, her treasure clear but held close, in her own keeping.She would never belong to anyone but herself, and that made him long for her to share that self with him—in every conceivable way.

~ Cara Mckinnon

Who can stop influenza and tuberculosis? The wealth of high society cannot buy off this evil, for their bored children die alongside everyone else.

~ Margie Bayer

I want to be your lover. Burn your list, Jane. Let me be the one.

~ Tina Gabrielle

The only thing he was sorry for was slamming the door and perhaps raising his voice to the woman who'd been like a mother to him since the passing of his parents. Perhaps she hadn't really deserved his reaction, but he was, justifiably, weary of their meddling and hearing about his father's will. Apparently no suitable maiden was going to appear on his doorstep. He seemed to be looking for a needle in a haystack.

~ Lisa M. Prysock

Yet, the quest for knowledge will overcome us and we must know. And, at last, we must see where the road ends, even if it be the cliff.

~ Nancy B. Brewer

I want to fill every part of you, breathe the air from your lungs and leave my handprints on your soul. I want to give you more pleasure than you can bear.

~ Lisa Kleypas

Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eigh­teenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men.

~ Diana Gabaldon

I know the truth now. You've figured out I'm falling in love with you and you're trying to make me stop by hurting me this way. Well it won't work.One way or another, I'm going to make you care about me. Yes, I am, unless your cold attitude kills me first.It's only fair, Connor. If I'm going to be miserable, by God, so are you.I am not a common wench and I will not be treated like one.

~ Julie Garwood

He kissed her. Without warning, without permission. Without even deciding to do it, but simply because he couldn't have done anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. It belonged to him, and he wanted it back.

~ Tessa Dare

Love will find a way against time itself.

~ Sylvia Day

They (mothers-in-law) never leave when they say they will. When my mother-in-law visits, the mice throw themselves at the cat, begging to be eaten.

~ Lisa Kleypas

Win told me that one isn’t improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb.

~ Lisa Kleypas

Every word you have ever uttered, is engraved upon my heart.

~ Elizabeth Hoyt

You are not The Giver of My Heart’s Desire.” I took a deep breath and smiled. “You are my heart’s desire.

~ Julianne Donaldson

With time, grief has a way of slipping down in the crevices of your heart. It never really leaves; it just makes room for more.

~ Nancy B. Brewer

If I am ever in the position where I wish to seduce someone I will simply assure her it’s better than rats.

~ Anne Stuart

I don't care who he is. He needs to disappear. Ransom turned and called out the window. For the love of G-d man. I have England's sweetheart bent over the desk and panting for me. Go away and come back tomorrow.

~ Tessa Dare

I wondered what he would have thought if he'd known that I'd gleaned most of my information from reading historical romance novels.

~ Nicole Luiken

If I could,” he went on, “I would remain like this indefinitely—clasped by you, held inside you, a part of you—without moving at all. When we make love, I fight climax with everything I have. I don’t want to come; I do not want it to end. No matter how long I make it last, it isn’t nearly long enough. I am furious when I cannot hold back any longer. Why, Jess? If all I seek is the physical relief of natural lust, just as I would seek sleep or food, why would I deny myself?”She turned her head and caught his mouth with hers, kissing him desperately.“Tell me you understand,” he demanded, his lips moving beneath hers. “Tell me you feel it, too.”“I feel you,” she breathed, as intoxicated by his ardency as she was by the finest claret. “You have become everything to me.

~ Sylvia Day

I have wanted you for so long now,” he said roughly, “I’ve no memory of how it feels to be devoid of the craving. But you must know what you do. I need you to think of who you are and where you are and who I am. Think of how things will be once we’ve crossed this threshold. Think of how you will leave this cabin—disheveled and well fucked.

~ Sylvia Day

Count this as a mere taste, sweetheart, of all the pleasure I can give you. Marry me and let me show you more. Be mine, and I'll take you on a journey the likes of which you've ever only imagined. ~~ Adam to Mallory

~ Tracy Anne Warren

Miss Edmonton: I don't even know where to start. It's too horrifying to even speak of.Jenny: Nonsense. Let's start with the basics. What did your aunt tell you?Miss Edmonton: My aunt said that my husband will come into my room and pull my skirt up. And then he'll put himself inside of me. She said it hurts. She suggested I hold my tongue and pretend I am somewhere else until he is done.Jenny: Yes. I should think it would hurt if you did it that way. Good heavens.

~ Courtney Milan

He'd missed matching wits with her. Shall we duel with our lips? You may find yourself eating grass for breakfast.

~ Vicky Dreiling

Although most advice should be distrusted, particularly when it comes from myself . . . keep an open mind, Miss Hathaway. One should never look a rich husband in the mouth. - St. Vincent

~ Lisa Kleypas

Yes, my boy, you are indeed much faster, bigger, and stronger than me and an altogether superior speciman of God's creation, but I have seen your like before. Only one of us can be master, and it won't be you.

~ Emery Lee

He wondered where the difference was between the good guys and the bad guys if their means were all just born out of perceived necessity and their goals by the unquestioned orders they had been given.

~ Osiris Brackhaus

So when I saw you lying in the shed there, I thought that even God couldn't be that cruel. You were everything I ever asked for – so maybe you could also be the love of my life...

~ Osiris Brackhaus

I been running up a bill with the devil ever since, and now he's come to collect on the debt.

~ Steven B. Weissman

I'm not going to accept your challenge. There will be no duel.Why not? Because I'm a woman?No, because I've seen the way you spinsters handle a pistol. You'd shoot me dead where I stood.

~ Tessa Dare

This man was different from all others; he was forbidden fruit, the outsider. Her mother had trained her well, but she had never told her what to do if a man set her heart to throbbing like the hooves of a runaway horse.

~ Constance O'banyon

If you have always suspected your sister of an inclination to madness, it will be my pleasure to confirm your worst fears.

~ Mary Balogh

Never judge yourself by the narrowstandards of others. What we do together here is ourbusiness, nobody else's. Never, never doubt what we havejust done is anything but love. Never let yourself be restrictedby thoughts of what society would have you do, what it wouldaccept or condemn. Please promise me that.

~ Lynne Connolly