Top 140 Deanna Raybourn Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Mrs. Clutterthorpe, I can hardly think of any fate worse than becoming the mother of six... unless perhaps it were plague.”

— Deanna Raybourn

52. “He paused again, letting his words settle like stones falling to the bottom of a pond.”

— Deanna Raybourn

53. “To walk away from something is only half the picture. What are you walking towards?”

— Deanna Raybourn

54. “I was merely thinking that it may have been a very grave mistake to introduce you to Lady C. If the pair of you ever put your minds to it, you could probably topple governments together.” I smiled as I pocketed the weapon. “One thing at a time, dear Stoker. One thing at a time.”

— Deanna Raybourn

55. “It was the viscount, with impeccable manners and deplorable timing.”

— Deanna Raybourn

56. “The hardest lesson I had learnt upon my travels was patience. There are times when every muscle, every nerve, screams for movement, when every instinct urges escape. But the instinct to fly is not always a sound one. There are occasions when only stillness can save you.”

— Deanna Raybourn

57. “Aunt Nell used to say it was not decent to have violet eyes, that they were a telltale sign of bad nature, like ginger hair or a hunchback.”

— Deanna Raybourn

58. “You have large opinions for so small a person.”

— Deanna Raybourn

59. “I’m a woman. Guilt is our birthright. Guilt if we want to be mothers, guilt if we take the Pill instead or choose to abort. Guilt if we stay home with our kids or guilt if we work. Guilt if we sleep with a man, guilt if we say no. Guilt if we’re lucky enough to survive for no good reason.”

— Deanna Raybourn

60. “Now I was more certain than ever of my decision. I could not love a man who did not love Jane Austen.”

— Deanna Raybourn

61. “What was it that Napoleon said, my lady? ‘Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.”

— Deanna Raybourn

62. “There will always be men who rally to the cause of another man in his moment of disgrace simply because they fear their own so deeply.”

— Deanna Raybourn

63. “I am an adult person who is not answerable to children.”

— Deanna Raybourn

64. “That is the hallmark of a good partnership, you know – when one partner sees the forest and the other studies the trees.”

— Deanna Raybourn

65. “Have you ever looked a starving beggar in the eye and thought that the privileges you enjoy are nothing more than a whim of the cosmos?”

— Deanna Raybourn

66. “Before I could ask, he caught sight of the garment in my hand. “In the name of bleeding Jesus, what are you sewing? Is that my shirt?” “It is, and I must say, it is in a deplorable state. But at least the material is quite good and will stand up to proper mending. Unfortunately, mending is not one of my skills,” I said, holding up the shirt. Somehow I had managed to attach it to my own skirt, and I took up scissors to snip it free.”

— Deanna Raybourn

67. “Will you write?” I asked. “Probably not. The pen is a demanding mistress. I take delight in thwarting her expectations.”

— Deanna Raybourn

68. “Gentlemen are champion sulkers so long as one doesn’t call the behavior by that name.”

— Deanna Raybourn

69. “Because there is no power on earth that could make me abandon our friendship. There is no deed you could confess so dark that it would make me forsake you. You said of us once that we were quicksilver and the rest of the world mud. We are alike, shaped by Nature in the same mold, and whatever that signifies, it means that to spurn each other would be to spit in the face of whatever deity has seen fit to bring us together. We are the same, and to leave you would be to leave myself.”

— Deanna Raybourn

70. “If I were going to play the adventuress, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, I supposed.”

— Deanna Raybourn

71. “A good wet weep is always just the thing. You will feel better soon. Not just yet, but soon. And when you do, enjoy it. Life is too uncertain, my dear. You must seize happiness where you find it.”

— Deanna Raybourn

72. “Mrs. Clutterthorpe, I can hardly think of any fate worse than becoming the mother of six. Unless perhaps it were plague, and even then I am persuaded a few disfiguring buboes and possible death would be preferable to motherhood.”

— Deanna Raybourn

73. “Did you know that if you rub a cat’s fur the wrong way with a piece of silk, you can make sparks? Little flickers of electricity conjured from your bare fingertips. it is the nearest thing to being a god. That is how I feel when I spar with you.”

— Deanna Raybourn

74. “The truth, dear reader, is that I was as ready for him as any filly ready for the stud. My blood thrummed whenever he came near, the air crackling between us like one of Galvani’s electrical experiments. It was a mercy that we had not been alone in our train compartment on the journey back to London; otherwise, I suspect the urgent swaying of the conveyance would have proven too much for my increasingly limited self-control.”

— Deanna Raybourn

75. “After all, I might not intend to use him for a plaything, but I could still appreciate looking through the toy-shop window.”

— Deanna Raybourn

76. “One is not born English without knowing how to converse easily about the weather.”

— Deanna Raybourn

77. “We are mere humans, Veronica. We are destined to prefer beauty to ugliness.” His.”

— Deanna Raybourn

78. “If one has a purpose, life is bearable enough, do you not think so?”

— Deanna Raybourn

79. “As a scientist I rebelled against the disorder, and I had long since discovered that nothing thwarted the mental processes like clutter.”

— Deanna Raybourn

80. “One cannot innovate new improvements without understanding old failures.”

— Deanna Raybourn

81. “Which is why I stayed long enough to buy every man a pint and winnow out at least a little kernel of wheaty truth from the chaff of gossip.”

— Deanna Raybourn

82. “He considered that a moment, rolling the sweet over his tongue. “There are times when it is entirely safe to show one’s vulnerability, to roll over and reveal the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.”

— Deanna Raybourn

83. “Everyone has a capacity for cruelty. Not everyone gets the chance to exercise it.”

— Deanna Raybourn

84. “You rise from your bed every day on two strong legs and can think only to complain that someone once spoke harshly to you.”

— Deanna Raybourn

85. “His lips twisted. ‘Met. So tame a word for it. It was not a meeting, Veronica. I was introduced to her and it was like finding a part of myself that had been somehow walking the earth without me. She was my other half when I had not realized I was incomplete.”

— Deanna Raybourn

86. “The truth is a hard mirror, and I am in no mood to look upon my reflection.”

— Deanna Raybourn

87. “One may be elegant or enthusiastic, but seldom both. If.”

— Deanna Raybourn

88. “I had long since discovered upon my travels that men are largely the same no matter where one encounters them. And if one is prepared to let them discourse on their pet topics of conversation, one can generally get on with things quite handily without any interference.”

— Deanna Raybourn

89. “Tis a hard thing for a child to know she isn’t wanted. It gets into her blood and bones until she knows that she must always find her own way, for none will smooth her path. But that sort of thing makes a woman strong, you know.”

— Deanna Raybourn

90. “Paddington Station. With its spacious arches and exuberant iron lacework, Mr. Brunel’s pride and joy had persuaded me that in spite of their reputation for stodginess, engineers were in possession of truly flamboyant imaginations.”

— Deanna Raybourn

91. “I have faith that men can be as reasonable and logical as women if they but try.”

— Deanna Raybourn

92. “I suppose it is quite certain he is dead?” I asked faintly. “There are bits of him stuck to your shoe,” he remarked, rather unhelpfully.”

— Deanna Raybourn

93. “Should I be in distress? In a meadow? You mean if the cows organize some sort of attack? I have extensive experience with cows. They almost never do that.” “Forget.”

— Deanna Raybourn

94. “I see only a little, lady, but I know that your fortune is as twined with his as the ivy to the oak.”

— Deanna Raybourn

95. “We looked like a girl gang that would have the Queen as our leader, all low heels and no-nonsense curls.”

— Deanna Raybourn

96. “Lord Templeton-Vane bared his teeth in what a stupid person might have mistaken for a smile.”

— Deanna Raybourn

97. “Australia is full of unsuitable people – you will fit in beautifully.”

— Deanna Raybourn

98. “He was no respecter of institutions simply because they boasted antiquity. He believed, like all good radicals, that everything ought to be examined anew by each generation. What served society should be retained, and what did not should be discarded without sentiment or reserve.”

— Deanna Raybourn

99. “Sometimes I helps a few of the other girls out,” she told him, raising her chin. “Long Bet needed new boots last week, and Mary Jane lacked a few shillings to renting her own room. She’s got a snug little place of her own, just around the corner,” she added. The dreams in this part of the city were as small and pinched as the faces. Four walls to call one’s own. A hot meal, a pair of shoes with sound soles.”

— Deanna Raybourn

100. “I felt in this new adventure I was rousing to life again. I was a butterfly, newly emerged from the chrysalis, damp winged and trembling with expectation.”

— Deanna Raybourn