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Mary Balogh

Mary Balogh Quotes

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“Her look became frantic. “You don’t understand,” she said. “Maybe it’s different in the wild land you come from, Mr. Bouchard. But here gentlemen are always right. And girls like me are always sluts once they have lost their m-maidenhood. That is what I will be called if anyone knows. Or whore. Please, Mr. Bouchard.” Her hands clawed at the lapels of his coat. “Sh, ma petite,” he said, drawing her into his arms again, soothing her. “Sacré coeur, sometimes I forget that now I am in a civilized nation where maidens who are raped are sluts and ’ores. Civilization is a wonderful thing, n’est-ce pas?”

“La felicidad es siempre algo pasajero, fugaz. Nunca es un estado permanente para nadie aun que muchos perseveramos en creer la tonta idea de que si ocurriera esto o aquello seríamos felices el resto de nuestra vida. Tengo momentos de felicidad como la mayoría. Tal vez he aprendido a encontrarla de maneras que pasarían inadvertidas a algunas personas. Siento el calor del verano aquí en este momento, veo los árboles y el agua y oigo a esa gaviota invisible allá arriba. Siento la novedad de tener compañía cuando normalmente vengo aquí solo. Y este momento me produce felicidad.”

“Why had peace given place so soon to turmoil? To two separate solitudes? Because peace had been without thought? Without...integrity? How could she have felt like that without love? Was love essential? Did it even exist - the love she had dreamed of her life? If it did, it was too late now for her to find it. Must she make do with this instead, then? Only this? Pleasure without love?”

“Did she ever feel nostalgia for any of her girlhood dreams? But life was made up of a succession of dreams, some few to be realized, most to be set aside as time went on, one or two to persist for a lifetime. It was knowing when to abandon a dream, perhaps, that mattered and distinguished the successful people in life from the sad, embittered persons who never moved on from the first of life's great disappointments. Or from the airy dreamers who never really lived life at all.”

“But the things is, you see, that two people can never actually become one no matter how close they are. And it would not be desirable even if it were possible. What would happen when one of them died? It would leave the other as a half a person, and that would be a dreadful thing. We must each be a whole person and therefore we each need some privacy to be alone with ourselves and our own feelings.”

“Black is the absence of all color. White is the presence of all colors. I suppose life must be one or the other. On the whole, though, I think I would prefer color to its absence. But then black does add depth and texture to color. Perhaps certain shades of gray are necessary to a complete palette. Even unrelieved black. Ah, a deep philosophical question. Is black necessary to life, even a happy life? Could we ever be happy if we did not at least occasionally experience misery?”

“After you married, Crispin, she said, my heart was broken. I will not deny it. But I did not slip into a sort of suspended life that would be forever gray and meaningless if you did not somehow come back to me. I put back the pieces of my heart and kept on living. I am not the woman I was when I was in love with you and expecting to marry you. I am not the woman I was when I heard that you were married. I am the woman I have become in the five years since then, and she is a totally different person. I like her. I wish to continue living her life.”

“I am not sure what lonliness is," she said. "If it is not literally being solitary, is it the fear of solitude, of being alone with oneself? I feel no such fear. I like being alone." "What do you fear then?" he asked her. She glanced briefly at him and smiled, a fragile expression that spoke for itself even before she found words. "Never finding myself again.”

“Now I must live with the consequences of the choice I made. And I will not call it the wrong choice. That would be foolish and pointless. That choice led me to everything that has happened since, including this very moment, and the choices I make today or tomorrow or next week will lead me to the next and next present moments in my life. It is all a journey, Miss Jewell. I have come to understand that that is what life is all about-a journey and the courage and energy always to take the next step and the next without judgement about what was right and what was wrong.”