Top 200 Philippa Gregory Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Every woman has to have something which singles her out, which catches the eyes, which makes her the center of attention. I am going to be french.”

— Philippa Gregory

52. “I had never seen a woman in such despair before. It was worse than death, it was a constant longing for death and a constant rejection of life. She lived like darkness in her own day.”

— Philippa Gregory

53. “I wanted the heat and the sweat and the passion of a man that I could love and trust. And I wanted to give myself to him: not for advantage, but for desire.”

— Philippa Gregory

54. “Good god what men can do to their brains when their cocks are hard.”

— Philippa Gregory

55. “They say that at the mountain pass he looked back at his kingdom, his beautiful kingdom, and wept, and his mother told him to weep like a woman for what he could not hold as a man.”

— Philippa Gregory

56. “I won’t forgive this wrong done to me and my house, whoever it was that killed my boys, I shall put a curse on their house that they will have no first born son to inherit. Whoever took my son will lose his son. He will spend his life longing for an heir. He will bury his first born and long for him, for I cannot even bury mine.”

— Philippa Gregory

57. “She looked at me as if for a moment she would seek someone who would understand the dreadful predicament of a woman, in this world ruled by men.”

— Philippa Gregory

58. “The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.”

— Philippa Gregory

59. “I cannot be your mistress,” I say simply. “I would rather die than dishonor my name. I cannot bring that shame on my family.” I pause. I am anxious not to be too discouraging. “Whatever I might wish in my heart,” I say very softly.”

— Philippa Gregory

60. “We might, either of us, be Queen of England and yet we’ll always be nothing to our family.”

— Philippa Gregory

61. “Why not?’ She asks the most challenging questions that a woman can ask. ‘Why should I not read? Why should I not think? Why should I not speak?”

— Philippa Gregory

62. “Any woman who dares to make her own destiny will always put herself in danger.”

— Philippa Gregory

63. “It is luck to love someone who is free to love you in return. But I don’t. I just desire him, desire him and desire him; and I wait for it to burn out. Everything I have ever gained has always turned to ashes after a little while. Why should this be any different?”

— Philippa Gregory

64. “Just because one man calls him Allah and another calls him God is no reason for believers to be enemies.”

— Philippa Gregory

65. “Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision and they cannot tolerate any other.”

— Philippa Gregory

66. “When they launch snakes you’ll have your namesake.”

— Philippa Gregory

67. “I am not a yard of ribbon. I am not a leg of ham. I am not for sale to anyone.”

— Philippa Gregory

68. “When he told me that he would fight forever, I knew that he would have to be defeated.”

— Philippa Gregory

69. “One’s lover is one’s partner in observing and understanding the world. Marriage is a place where joint narratives are composed. If the lover is a liar then all your joint observations are unreliable. You will have to start all over again.”

— Philippa Gregory

70. “I believe that to be a free woman is to be both passionate and intelligent; and I am a free woman at last.”

— Philippa Gregory

71. “She stood silent among the quiet sounds of the night, and certainty came to her.”

— Philippa Gregory

72. “These were simple people: when someone told them that they had nothing to fear they knew that they were in trouble.”

— Philippa Gregory

73. “I cannot know what the future will bring us,” he says in a rapid undertone. “I cannot know where you will be given in marriage, nor what life might hold for me. But I can’t let you go without telling you – without telling you at least once – that I love you.”

— Philippa Gregory

74. “This is a woman who has not been tamed to be as others want; she has not been cut down to fit her circumstances.”

— Philippa Gregory

75. “I’m utterly indifferent to Kate Middleton’s baby.”

— Philippa Gregory

76. “She was a woman whose spirit had been hammered and forged until she could only ring true. Compared with the rest of us sho was silver, while we were pewter, a common of lead and tin.”

— Philippa Gregory

77. “If you are a reader, you are already halfway to being a writer,” she says. “For you have a love of words and pleasure from seeing them on a page. And if you are a writer, then you will find that you are driven to write. It is a gift that demands to be shared. You cannot be a silent singer.”

— Philippa Gregory

78. “En Ma Fin Est Ma Commencement – In my end is my beginning.”

— Philippa Gregory

79. “And now I want love. Lust is no good for me. I want love. His love.”

— Philippa Gregory

80. “If everyone in Christendom ate nothing but fish on Friday, then the fishermen and their children would eat well the rest of the week.”

— Philippa Gregory

81. “There are many sorts of love. And when you love a man who is less than you dreamed, you have to make allowances for the difference between a real man and a dream. Sometimes you have to forgive him. Perhaps you even have to forgive him often. But forgiveness often comes with love.”

— Philippa Gregory

82. “But this world is changing. Perhaps by the time you are old enough to marry the world will hear a woman’s voice. Perhaps she will not have to swear to obey in her wedding vows. Perhaps one day a woman will be allowed to both love and think.”

— Philippa Gregory

83. “I am exhorted to be virtuous and fertile. The people see me indicated as the choice of God for Queen of England. Choirs sing as I enter the city, rose petals are showered down on me. I am myself, my own tableau: the Englishwoman from the House of Lancaster come to be the Queen of York. I am an object of peace and unity.”

— Philippa Gregory

84. “I am a woman who makes things happen, and I am not defeated yet. I am not defeated by a boy with a newly won crown, and no man will ever walk away from me certain that he won’t walk back.”

— Philippa Gregory

85. “I knew when I first saw you that you were the woman I would want for all my life.”

— Philippa Gregory

86. “I have seen sights and travelled in countries you cannot imagine. I have been afraid and I have been in danger, and I have never for one moment thought that I would throw myself at at a man for his help.”

— Philippa Gregory

87. “Sometimes you cannot help what you hear, you cannot help what you see.”

— Philippa Gregory

88. “In a shipwreck, it is every drowning man for himself.”

— Philippa Gregory

89. “Perhaps we will not be great people, chosen by God, but just happy.”

— Philippa Gregory

90. “Joan was a young woman who tried to walk her own path in the world of men, just as my great-aunt told me. And it led to this cold tower, this swan dive, this death.”

— Philippa Gregory

91. “I think nobody in the whole world knows what it is to be in love, to be so beloved.”

— Philippa Gregory

92. “The one thing that Jane’s death should teach us is that life is precious and every day is a gift that we should treasure.”

— Philippa Gregory

93. “Have learned that the most precious thing is a place where you can be as you are, where someone can see you as your true self.”

— Philippa Gregory

94. “You don’t get to be a favorite at a tyrant’s court without beheading your principles every day.”

— Philippa Gregory

95. “Learn you to die!” means consider how your death is meaningful, as your life is meaningful.”

— Philippa Gregory

96. “The truth is the last thing that matters.”

— Philippa Gregory

97. “I would like you to have a beautiful day every day.”

— Philippa Gregory

98. “I put the charm bracelet away in the purse and return it to my jewel case. I don’t need a spell to foresee the future; I am going to make it happen.”

— Philippa Gregory

99. “I would play ball with Catherine, and hide and seek: Not a very challenging game in an open meadow, but she was still at the age where she believed that if she shut her eyes and buried her head under a shawl then she could not be seen.”

— Philippa Gregory

100. “I feel as if I can think only when I see the words flowing from the nib of my quill, that my thoughts make sense only when they are black ink on cream paper. I love the sensation of a thought in my head and the vision of the word on the page.”

— Philippa Gregory