Top 250 Tessa Dare Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “I’ve waited too long for this. Days. Weeks. Years.”

— Tessa Dare

52. “I love you. But I don’t want to be your reason for living. I want to share your life. There’s a difference between the two.”

— Tessa Dare

53. “You’re a powerful man,′ she went on. ‘And it’s not only to do with your money or your title. You have the ability to make people feel valued, when you’re not making them feel like rubbish.”

— Tessa Dare

54. “Rothbury stood over her. He was shirtless, wet, wild-haired. Handsome as sin and angry as Lucifer. A duke accustomed to having his way. Now she’d not only defied him, she’d directly challenged him. His words were low and even, but they smoldered like a fuse burning toward gunpowder. “I don’t need to prove anything to you.” He propped his hands on his hips. One of his pectoral muscles twitched angrily. As if registering an indignant harrumph.”

— Tessa Dare

55. “I’m not interrogating him. I’m merely asking him questions.”

— Tessa Dare

56. “If anyone or anything frightens you, shout.” “Shout what?” He made an aimless gesture. “‘Help,’ I suppose. Or ‘Fire’ or ‘Murder.’ In a pinch, ‘James’ would suffice.” She nodded. “‘Come to me, you magnificent stag,’ it is.”

— Tessa Dare

57. “If you’re a broodmare, that would make me the stud.” “And there,” she said, “is the injustice of the world in a nutshell.”

— Tessa Dare

58. “She would allow him to comfort her. And perhaps, someday, she would listen patiently if a dark, dreary night found him well in his cups and he drunkenly confessed to still feeling scores of wounds that weren’t his own, but those of men under his command.”

— Tessa Dare

59. “I’m here to present my findings at the symposium. I’m an esteemed member of the Society, with an impressive record of scholarship, and I have something of value to contribute to these proceedings. I also happen to be female. I’m a woman who knows a great deal about rocks. I suggest you find the stones to deal with it.”

— Tessa Dare

60. “You are wet, and you are cold. You don’t like being cold. Therefore, I despise you being cold. I would go about murdering raindrops and setting fire to the clouds, but that would take slightly more than an hour. Perhaps even two. So we’re here, and you will cease complaining about it.”

— Tessa Dare

61. “What you don’t realize is that the world does not need more perfection. It needs more compassion and empathy.”

— Tessa Dare

62. “I do not believe every problem can be cured with a kitten. I do believe in love. And perhaps love can’t cure every problem, but it makes the wounds heal a bit faster, with fewer scars.”

— Tessa Dare

63. “It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a titled man in possession of a fortune should steer clear of me.”

— Tessa Dare

64. “Surely it can’t be,” he said, his hand stealing over her thigh, “that this intrepid explorer of underwater caverns hasn’t explored her own little cove?”

— Tessa Dare

65. “I’ve even taught them a bit of French.” Chase read aloud from the board. “‘Donnez-nous le butin, ou nous vous ferons jeter par-dessus bord.’ What does that mean?” She hedged. “Hand over the booty, or you’ll walk the plank.”

— Tessa Dare

66. “This is true valor, I hope you know. Legends have sprung from less. All Lancelot did was paddle about in a balmy lake.” She smiled. “Lancelot was a knight. You’re a viscount. The bar is higher.”

— Tessa Dare

67. “That’s because there are no simple answers. Can it be divine bliss? Yes. Can it be a dismal trial? Yes. It’s like conversation. With the wrong person, it can feel forced, perfunctory. Boring as hell. But sometimes you find someone with whom the discussion just flows. You never run out of ideas. There’s no awkwardness in honesty. You surprise each other and yourselves.”

— Tessa Dare

68. “She wants your secrets. She wants your soul. You’ve got to crack yourself open and find that broken, shameful piece of your heart that you’d hide from the world and God Himself if you could manage it. And then serve it up to her on a platter.”

— Tessa Dare

69. “Dear heaven,” Kate breathed. “He’s just covered in blood.” “And dirt,” Sally said. “But cor, he’s gorgeous anyhow.” “Sally, only you could think of such a thing at a time like this.” “You can’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

— Tessa Dare

70. “I’m attached to you, you idiot. You’re my best friend, and my brother by blood. No one who loves you expects you to be perfect. If by some miracle you managed it, we wouldn’t recognize you.”

— Tessa Dare

71. “And no matter how strenuously she pinned it, dark, heavy curls worked loose on all sides, like tentacles. Of course, it was an entrancing, strangely erotic octopus. Ransom worried this might be how fetishes developed.”

— Tessa Dare

72. “Where did you come from?” she whispered, mostly to herself. “What are you wanting here?” One hand shot out, catching her by the hair. Violet gasped at the sharp yank on a thousand nerve endings. His eyes flew open, clear and intense. She read his answer in them. You. I’m wanting you.”

— Tessa Dare

73. “And before we begin, I should like one thing noted. I knew you had Secret Pain.”

— Tessa Dare

74. “Sometimes the devil you knew was easier to face than the devil who’d pressed you to a bedpost and rolled your nipple under his thumb.”

— Tessa Dare

75. “Why did men have to ruin everything? The answer was simple, she supposed – because foolish women gave them the chance.”

— Tessa Dare

76. “And while I’m on the subject, it’s inadvisable to wander the house at night in the home of a known rake. Your reputation could be compromised.” “I’m not worried. You said the thought of seducing me would never even cross your mind.” “Yes, but sometimes,” he murmured, “a man acts without thinking at all.”

— Tessa Dare

77. “A man might engage in flirtation with distinterest, even disdain. But he never teases without affection.”

— Tessa Dare

78. “When Susanna cocked her pistol, the others followed suit. The chorus of clicks raced down Bram’s spine. “I find this scene wildly arousing,” Colin murmured, echoing Bram’s own thoughts. “Is that wrong?” “If it is, I can promise you company in hell.” His cousin made an amused sound. “And you thought we have nothing in common.”

— Tessa Dare

79. “Yes, Min. This is how it should be.” Raw need edged his voice. “Never settle for less. Be fearless. Wild and loud and lovely. God, you’re so lovely.”

— Tessa Dare

80. “If Rafe had drawn up a list of tasks at Phoebe’s age, he could only imagine it would have looked thusly: 1. Skip lessons. 2. Chase girls. 3. Any excuse for a fistfight. 4. Is that a squirrel? End of list.”

— Tessa Dare

81. “Doubt not my love,” he repeated, with a chorus of knights to bolster him. “If men would seek to part us, death itself would be a veil too thin. For lo, though I wander the earth for my king, you remain – now and ever – queen of my heart.”

— Tessa Dare

82. “People toss around the words ‘loyal’ and ‘kindhearted’ as though they’re common qualities. But they aren’t. They’re so rare.”

— Tessa Dare

83. “Any self-respecting rake had two kinds of women in his life: those he took to bed at night and those who made him a pancake in the morning. If he suddenly wanted both from the same woman, it was a warning flag. One big and red enough for even a blind man to see.”

— Tessa Dare

84. “You’re a grown woman, and a clever one. I believe you understand the situation. And I’m going to trust that you know your own mind.”

— Tessa Dare

85. “In fact, the possibility was so far out of the question, the possibility and the question were on separate continents.”

— Tessa Dare

86. “The tears came, and she surrendered to them. There was no one to hear, and no one to see. She cried until her eyes were dry and her heart was empty. The foolishness of it all. She’d wasted so many years allowing the value he placed on her to dictate the way she regarded herself.”

— Tessa Dare

87. “As an experienced wallflower, Violet Winterbottom knew to stake her ground and guard it.”

— Tessa Dare

88. “First rule of love: dinna panic.”

— Tessa Dare

89. “He followed her down the corridor. “Don’t walk away from me. I’d like some answers here. Whose invitation did I just accept, and what does that slimy prig want of you? And why do I come in third in your affections behind the slimy prig and a squashed beetle?”

— Tessa Dare

90. “Was it a ruthless seduction or a simple mistake?” Her companion scowled. And unleashed a robust chain of what sounded like pure Breton blasphemy. Violet glanced in Finn and Fosbury’s direction, reassuring them with a mild smile. When she spoke again, she kept her voice hushed and her manner calm. “I wasn’t unwilling, if that’s what you’re thinking. Quite the opposite.” “Even so. He was a devil to take advantage. And a fool to ever let you go.”

— Tessa Dare

91. “He had no secrets left. No defenses. He had nothing, except that same vast, dark, empty, infinite ache that had resided in him for as long as he could remember. An endless flight of stairs, leading down and down into the cold, dark pit of his soul. Now, at long last, he’d reached the absolute rock bottom. And there she was, just standing there. She’d been there all along.”

— Tessa Dare

92. “Hunger, after all, is a more potent seasoning than salt.”

— Tessa Dare

93. “More to the point, I am fifty-eight. I need grandchildren before my decline. It’s not right for two generations of the family to be drooling at the same time.”

— Tessa Dare

94. “Pouring tea was just what she needed right now. Such a civilizing force, tea. She would nip sugar with little silver tongs. Stir milk with a tiny spoon. Tiny spoons were incompatible with a state of sensual turmoil.”

— Tessa Dare

95. “You heard her the other night,” Bruiser said. “She wants love. And devotion and compromise. Funny, isn’t it, how women seem to want those things, when they’re saying words like ‘Till death do us part.”

— Tessa Dare

96. “Emma Gladstone had learned a few hard lessons by the age of two-and-twenty. Charming princes weren’t always what they seemed. Shining armor went out of fashion with the Crusades. And if fairy godmothers existed, hers was running several years late. Most of the time, a girl needed to rescue herself.”

— Tessa Dare

97. “Because,” he said, “I like to know the names of the people I despise. I keep them in a little book and pore over it from time to time, whilst sipping brandy and indulging in throaty, ominous laughter.”

— Tessa Dare

98. “He couldn’t compare a woman to a torrentially beautiful monsoon, and then look surprised that he’d gotten wet.”

— Tessa Dare

99. “He set Miss Goodnight back on her feet. As he lowered her to the floor, her body slid down his, like a raindrop easing down the surface of a rock.”

— Tessa Dare

100. “This is the normal way with birthdays, see? Amazingly enough, they arrive on the same day, every year.”

— Tessa Dare