Top 50 Judith McNaught Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I love life, even when bad things happen to me. I can’t stop loving it. Every season of the year comes with a promise that something wonderful is going to happen to me someday.”

— Judith McNaught

2. “True beauty springs from the heart and dwells in the eyes.”

— Judith McNaught

3. “You can’t live your life to suit other people. The harder you try, the more restrictions they’ll put on you just for the fun of seeing you jump through their hoops.”

— Judith McNaught

4. “A lie is an affront to the soul, as well as an insult to the intelligence of the person to whom one lies.”

— Judith McNaught

5. “You can’t outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little sidebets about the outcome of life. either you wade in and risk everything you have to play the game or you don’t play at all. and if u don’t play u can’t win.”

— Judith McNaught

6. “He will love only once – but it will be for always.”

— Judith McNaught

7. “Everything wrong I’ve ever done has always seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

— Judith McNaught

8. “Some women need no jewels to make them sparkle. You are one of them. -Royce Westmoreland.”

— Judith McNaught

9. “If I had a hundred kingdoms, I would trade them all for you, my dearest love. I was nothing until you.”

— Judith McNaught

10. “Why did happy memories fade and blur until one could scarcely recall them at all, while horrible memories seemed to retain their blinding clarity and painful sharpness?”

— Judith McNaught

11. “The groom always smiles proudly because he’s convinced he’s accomplished something quite wonderful. The bride smiles because she’s been able to convince him of it.”

— Judith McNaught

12. “Sometimes it just happens – to the wrong people at the wrong time.”

— Judith McNaught

13. “Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else.”

— Judith McNaught

14. “Either give me your hand, or end it now, and put us both out of our misery.”

— Judith McNaught

15. “Some people feel love in their hearts, Julie. Some of us feel it all way into our souls. We’re the ones who can’t forget.”

— Judith McNaught

16. “It was a kingdom of dreams – a place where things would be just the way I wanted them to be.”

— Judith McNaught

17. “Whitney: You black-hearted, treacherous, conniving scoundrel. Clayton: Your flattery warms my heart.”

— Judith McNaught

18. “Which brings me to the question of why we always ‘fall’ in love. One falls down steps, off ladders, into rivers and down mountains. If love is so wonderful, why don’t we soar in love or climb in love?”

— Judith McNaught

19. “After all, it’s not every day a woman is given a kingdom of dreams.”

— Judith McNaught

20. “I buy everything in sight. It took my last ounce of control not to buy one of these in every color.”

— Judith McNaught

21. “I do not believe that grief is ever so great that it can not be contained within.”

— Judith McNaught

22. “How foolish to yearn to ask the very person who’d caused the pain to heal it.”

— Judith McNaught

23. “Why is it,” Royce murmured, gazing into her intoxicating eyes, “that every time you surrender willingly, like this, you make me feel like a king who has conquered. Yet when I conquer you against your will, you make me feel like a defeated beggar?”

— Judith McNaught

24. “Whitney: Where is your home? Clayton: Wherever you are.”

— Judith McNaught

25. “It isn’t what you say that counts, it’s what you don’t say.”

— Judith McNaught

26. “A romance novel should leave readers joyous. My books all have happy endings.”

— Judith McNaught

Featured in: Romance Quotes

27. “Reformed rakes often make the best husbands.”

— Judith McNaught

28. “You will soon discover that in matters of the heart, memories are much kinder than reality.”

— Judith McNaught

29. “Jennifer Merrick had stored all her tears inside her, and her pride and courage would never permit her to break down and shed them.”

— Judith McNaught

30. “I used to be ashamed And now I am proud. The world once was black And now it is bright. I used to walk head bent And now I stand up tall. I used to have dreams But now I have hope.”

— Judith McNaught

31. “She wept with shame for her lack of will and with fear for a love she couldn’t control.”

— Judith McNaught

32. “Nor is he man enough to make a woman of you.”

— Judith McNaught

33. “I thought you were the loveliest, most enchanting creature God ever created.”

— Judith McNaught

Featured in: Romance Quotes

34. “For himself Ian would have calmly and unhesitatingly told society to go to hell, but they’d already put Elizabeth through hell, and he wanted somehow to make it right for her again.”

— Judith McNaught

35. “We are not of what we feel or believe to do, we are of what we do or fail to do.”

— Judith McNaught

36. “The old adage which says that it is ‘whom you know that counts’ is far off the mark. It is what you know about whom you know that truly makes difference.”

— Judith McNaught

37. “Missing you? I could cheerfully murder you.”

— Judith McNaught

38. “If you will kiss me.”

— Judith McNaught

39. “Royce’s eyes narrowed in discouragement at the thoght of having to sing to jenny. his deep bariton voice would surely bring every hound for miles to yap and nip at his heels.”

— Judith McNaught

40. “But he knew instinctively what he suggested was impossible. She’d been through so much, and held her tears back for so long, that Royce doubted that anything could force her to shed them.”

— Judith McNaught

41. “Childhood romances always seem so real, so enduring, when we are separated from the object of our affection. But usually, when we return, we find that our dreams and memories quiet surpassed reality. -Lady Anne, Whitney’s aunt.”

— Judith McNaught

42. “Life was wonderful, so filled with people and activities, with love and laughter.”

— Judith McNaught

Featured in: Romance Quotes

43. “In one of her more philosophical moments, she decided that the reason virginity was so prized for a bride was because early man must have realized that a bride who knew what was in store for her on her wedding night, would not be smiling quite so radiantly when she walked down that aisle!”

— Judith McNaught

44. “No longer was she an heiress from another world; she was the woman he had wanted to possess the moment he saw her, and she was sitting beside him, her hair cascading over his arm like a thick satin waterfall.”

— Judith McNaught

45. “I think we women underrate ourselves when it comes to our courage and strength.”

— Judith McNaught

46. “At my age, I regard each funeral I attend as a personal triumph, because I was not the guest of honor.”

— Judith McNaught

47. “Matt: I know you can cook. Meredith: What makes you so sure? Matt: Because less than an hour ago, you set me on fire.”

— Judith McNaught

48. “It would have hurt no matter who took you the first time.”

— Judith McNaught

49. “The two of them simply weren’t attracted to just any attractive, eligible man; they were attracted rarely, but when it happened, it was evidently a life-altering experience.”

— Judith McNaught

50. “You can’t stand clutter, and you have an obsession with orderliness. The furniture in here is centered exactly on the walls; the files on your desk are arranged in precise corners. If I had to guess, I would say you are probably a control freak, and that is usually symptomatic of a man who feels powerless to control his own life, so he tries to control every facet of his surroundings.”

— Judith McNaught