Top 200 Philippa Gregory Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Getting a woman into power is not the point – it’s getting a good woman into power who thinks and cares about what she does.”

— Philippa Gregory

152. “I have a longing for you, Lady Elizabeth Grey, that I have never felt for any woman before. Will you come to me? I ask it not as a king, and not even as a soldier who might die in battle, but as a simple man to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Come to me, I beg you, come to me. It could be my last wish. Will you come to me tonight?”

— Philippa Gregory

153. “You look as if you would eat me up,” he says. “I would,” I say. “I cannot think how to sate my desire for you. I think I will have to keep you prisoner here and eat you up in little cutlets, day after day.” “If I kept you prisoner, I would devour you in one greedy swallow,” he chuckles. “But you would not get out till you were with child.”

— Philippa Gregory

154. “Learning is an ornament to a good woman, not a distraction.”

— Philippa Gregory

155. “Yes, but either way, shamed or not, I shall be Queen of England, and this is the last time you will sit in my presence.”

— Philippa Gregory

156. “There was a magic: and the name of it was love.”

— Philippa Gregory

157. “For a moment we glared at each other, stubborn as cats on the stable wall, full of mutual resentment and something darker, the old sense between sisters that there is only really room in the world for one girl. The sense that every fight could be to the death.”

— Philippa Gregory

158. “Come back to me.” He laughs. It is not forced; it is the laugh of a happy man, confident in his luck and his abilities. “I will,” he says. “Trust me. You have married a man who is going to die in his bed, preferably after making love to the most beautiful woman in England.” He holds out his arms and I step towards him and feel the warmth of his embrace. “Make sure you do,” I say. “And I will make sure that the most beautiful woman in your eyes is always me.”

— Philippa Gregory

159. “Before God, I love you and cherish you more than anything in the world. Of course I want to marry you. I love you heart and soul.”

— Philippa Gregory

160. “However heart-stopping his smile and however honest his eyes, however much I think of him as a boy fired to greatness by his own ambition, I cannot trust him.”

— Philippa Gregory

161. “He will come to trust you, perhaps,” she says. “If you have years together. You may grow to be a loving husband and wife, if you have long enough. And if I never tell you anything, then there will never be a moment where you have to lie to him. Or worse – never a moment when you have to choose where your loyalties lie. I wouldn’t want you to have to choose between your father’s family and your husband’s. I wouldn’t want you to have to choose between the claims of your little son and another.” I.”

— Philippa Gregory

162. “What a test of love it is, when the beloved is less than perfect.”

— Philippa Gregory

163. “Stars in the night,′ he said. ‘Something something something something, some delight.”

— Philippa Gregory

164. “You will be the mother of the next King of England,” she declares. “The red rose and the white, a rose without a thorn. You will have a son, and we will call him Arthur of England.” She takes my hands. “This is your destiny, my daughter. I will help you.”

— Philippa Gregory

165. “We all want to triumph. But we all have to learn to endure what comes. We have to learn to treat misfortune and great fortune with indifference. That is wisdom.”

— Philippa Gregory

166. “I was born to be Queen of England and mother of the next King of England. I have to fulfill my destiny, it is my God-given destiny.”

— Philippa Gregory

167. “When you are still and thoughtful you are as lovely as the statues they are carving in Italy.”

— Philippa Gregory

168. “In a way. Magic is the act of making a wish come about. Like praying, like plotting, like herbs, like exerting your will on the world, making something happen.”

— Philippa Gregory

169. “But I warn you that a woman who seeks great power and wealth has to pay a great price, Perhaps you will be a great woman like Melusina, or Yolande, or like me; but you will be like all women; uneasy in the world of men.”

— Philippa Gregory

170. “If it was not in your interests to betray me then you would have been loyal.”

— Philippa Gregory

171. “The queen sees me coming, turns toward us and waits, with a killer’s patience, for me to reach the chancel steps.”

— Philippa Gregory

172. “People always make up stories about princesses. It comes to us with the crown. We have to carry it as lightly as we can.”

— Philippa Gregory

173. “It is the old smile of gritty courage that all women show who have gone through hard nights and come out without betrayal.”

— Philippa Gregory

174. “There is no one who loves peace more than a soldier.”

— Philippa Gregory

175. “I looked over to Anne. She was untying her mask and watching me with a long calculating look, the Boleyn look, the Howard look that says: what has happened here, and how may I turn it to my advantage? It was as if under her golden mask was another beautiful mask of skin, and only beneath that was the real woman.”

— Philippa Gregory

176. “I was not nervous. For the first time ever I felt as if I had taken my life into my own hands and I could command my own destiny. For once I was obedient neither to uncle nor father nor king, but following my own desires. And I knew that my desire led me, inexorably, to the man I loved. I.”

— Philippa Gregory

177. “There are many sorts of love,” she counsels me. “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.”

— Philippa Gregory

178. “We are both people of faith,” he said quietly. “Our enemies should be the people who have no faith, neither in their God, nor in others, nor in themselves. The people who should face our crusade should be those who bring cruelty into the world for no reason but their own power. There is enough sin and wickedness to fight, without taking up arms against people who believe in a forgiving God and who try to lead a good life.”

— Philippa Gregory

179. “We are Plantagenets – we dine on a diet of betrayal and heartbreak.”

— Philippa Gregory

180. “To do one man’s bidding to please another man and get nothing for yourself but heartbreak.”

— Philippa Gregory

181. “She doesn’t realize yet though men go to war it is the women who suffer – perhaps more than anyone.”

— Philippa Gregory

182. “She did not want him to know that she was not his beloved little sister any more but a woman who had learned to throw everything, even her mortal soul, into the battle to become queen.”

— Philippa Gregory

183. “He was such a happy boy, and happiness is not memorable.”

— Philippa Gregory

184. “It’s such a pointless unhappiness. I am so tired of it. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? But I am so tired of being unhappy.”

— Philippa Gregory

185. “He knew as well as I did that you cannot release a girl from her promise to love a man. She either gets herself free or she is bound for life.”

— Philippa Gregory

186. “Twelfth night, of all the nights of the year, is one where shapes shift and identities flicker.”

— Philippa Gregory

187. “Walk through your sorrow, my daughter, it hardly matters as long as you walk to where you want to be.”

— Philippa Gregory

188. “He has such kind eyes.” “Certainly he has eyes, but they do not have the power of emotion, only of sight.”

— Philippa Gregory

189. “But you remember this – great wealth or position is not a right, and you don’t deserve it however hard you work. It is chance, and the labor of others, that brings a man wealth. Don’t forget that others have earned your fortune for you. Never imagine you deserve it.”

— Philippa Gregory

190. “However much I might please Henry, he was still her boy – her lovely indulged spoilt golden boy. He might summon me or any other girl to his room, without disturbing the constant steady affection between them which had sprung from her ability, long ago, to love this man who was more foolish, more selfish, and less of a prince than she was a princess.”

— Philippa Gregory

191. “It’s as if our name is both our greatest pride and our curse,” I say.”

— Philippa Gregory

192. “I find I must prepare for my death. I don’t fear it. Ever since I lost my son I have been weary to my soul, and I think, when it finally comes, it will be a lying down to sleep without fear of dreams, without fear of waking. I am ready to lie down to sleep. I am tired.”

— Philippa Gregory

193. “No,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll ever have a fancy for a man.” “Hard luck on the man who loves you,” Will offered neutrally. “Very,” I said. I shot a sideways look at him. “A disaster for the man who loves me,” I repeated. “If he married me he would find me always cold. If he did not, he could waste his life in loving me and I would never return it.”

— Philippa Gregory

194. “I would rather see you dead at my feet than dishonored.”

— Philippa Gregory

195. “So he left her, because in his heart he feared that she was a woman with a divided nature – and he did not realize that all women are creatures of divided nature.”

— Philippa Gregory

196. “Jane had gone to pray for the dead queen, Anne would dance on her grave. The.”

— Philippa Gregory

197. “She would not let it go. “I had thought to be Queen of England and see my son on the throne,” she repeated.”

— Philippa Gregory

198. “I am happy; I am in his arms, my face crushed against his padded jacket, his arms around me as tight as a bear, so that I cannot breathe. When I look up into his beloved weary face, he kisses me so hard that I close my eyes and think myself a besotted girl again. I catch a breath, and he kisses me some more.”

— Philippa Gregory

199. “He shrugged. “Whatever does it mean? We write poems about it all day and sing songs about it all night but if there is such a thing in real life I’m damned if I know.”

— Philippa Gregory

200. “My advice to you is to guard yourself as you rise and destroy your enemies as you fall.”

— Philippa Gregory