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Historical Fiction Quotes

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Historical Fiction Quotes

“The horse’s hooves crashed out on the stone floor, echoing in the arched entrance. Ahead, the nave stretched, vast, empty, bathed in colour; the winter sun streaming through stained glass between great arches. The horse snorted, its measured steps ringing out on the flagstones and tombs.”

ReligionAdventureHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionBritish LiteratureCivil War FictionEnglish Civil WarWar Fiction
Book:Desecration: Winchester 1642
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“The gun stood on its platform, staring out over the breastwork of earth and timber, out across the steep valley to the hill beyond; a flat-topped hill, a great field of wheat laid over it, ripening and shimmering in the late afternoon sun; a cornfield filled with an army, a Cornish army, a superstitious, idolatrous army; an army of half-wild, barbarous heathens; a cornfield and an army to be cut down; a sacrifice to be reaped. 'For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

ReligionAdventureHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionBritish LiteratureCivil War FictionEnglish Civil WarWar Fiction
Book:The Keys of Hell and Death
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“Grenville's line of Cornishmen swayed and lurched, a low growl running through the ranks like a storm far out at sea, the boulders grinding as the waves built. And then it burst, men yelling, shaking their weapons in the air, the pikes clashing, thumping the ground, shouting, demanding, exclaiming, 'Kernow vedn keskerras!' Cornwall will march!”

AdventureHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionCornwallBritish LiteratureCivil War FictionEnglish Civil WarWar Fiction
Book:The Keys of Hell and Death
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“Ralph’s horse shifted under him. It sensed the danger, the fear, the icy sweat that ran down his back. He laid a calming hand on the animal’s thick veined neck. Breda had carried him across the battlefield of Edgehill, got him safe away at Aylesbury, Brentford and Turnham. Could they make it back behind Winchester’s walls? The great charger stepped backward. Along their short line, other horses were backing up, tossing their heads, whinnying. ‘As you were!’ Smith held them in check. ‘On my order. Keep close. Together.’ He looked at them. Looked again at the enemy about them. ‘Now! Ride for the gate!”

HistoricalHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyStuartCivil War FictionEnglish Civil WarWar Fiction1600sWinchester
Book:Desecration: Winchester 1642
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“Their greatest folly is that they don't understand you or your kinfolk. They cannot imagine that you would refuse being their vassal on the throne. They have no inkling that there are races of man that value sovereignty above the air they breathe. Like a puppet they expect you to approve and sign whatever policy put before you, bulking as they presume and barbarian would confronted with the daily administrative minutiae of rulership- along with the flowery jargon they'll use to disguise their schemes. And soon, drowning in woman and wine, your senses dulled from that stuporous escape- they'll have you unwittingly dismantle the Varangian guard before burying a dagger in your back" - Almuric Agricola Excerpt from Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga”

PhilosophyHistoryMilitaryHistorical FictionPolitical PhilosophyMedievalVikingsByzantine HistoryVarangian
Book:Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga
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“The prince remembers his father's words- "Steal a loaf of bread, son, and they will cut your hands off, but steal an entire country and they will proclaim you their king. Humanity can never forgive mediocrity, but when audacity and brilliance combine in the right individual it can luster godlike- and they will forgive you anything, even a whole generation of boys sent off to battle for the interests of that lustrous-one". Excerpt from Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga”

PhilosophyHistoryMilitaryHistorical FictionPolitical PhilosophyMedievalVikingsByzantine HistoryVarangian
Book:Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga
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“How is it that after war and conquest the spoils are split evenly between the Emperor, the treasury and his Varangian Guard? True they are an unmatched commodity in war, but servants nonetheless, not so?Not so. They are tigers. Wild things we have allowed into our lands, our cities and our homes. They stand over our sleeping forms with their terrible axes poised. They have come to know all our secrets and entrenched themselves so deeply within the bosom of the Empire that it begs the question: are we paying them to guard us, or are we bribing them not to kill us?" - Justrudd Valusarian Excerpt from Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga”

PhilosophyHistoryMilitaryHistorical FictionPolitical PhilosophyMedievalVikingsByzantine HistoryVarangian
Book:Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga
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“We are the sons of that beast, Almuric, we are but spruced up- urbane predators. What else, if not a talent for violence separates the aristocracy from the peasantry? We are the nobility for the very fact that we are able to visit more violence upon them than they can upon us. History is written by nations with superior violence. The greatest civilizations to ever have existed were allowed such lofty cultivations only because of their divine brutality- their ability to vanquish those nations standing in the path of their destiny" - Grand Champion, Count Húracan Excerpt from Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga”

PhilosophyHistoryMilitaryHistorical FictionPolitical PhilosophyMedievalVikingsByzantine HistoryVarangian
Book:Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga
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“Hail Hyperborean!- sired by Mars, mothered by frigid strife, suckled on the teats of war and sustained by the golden mead of conquest. Harken!- the thunder and clanging steel as he come from atop his glacial fastness. Woe!- red runs his marauding, rapine path; ever southward the unstoppable scourge, and onto gleaming cities- trampling underfoot the flower of their soldiery. Behold!- his heal on the throats of their champion elite. Hence he stands astride the vanquished and wailing land to be crowned the supreme fighting-man of the earth" -Boudewyn de Carlamagna Excerpt from VARANGIAN- Book One of Byzantum Saga”

ViolenceHistorical FictionFantasy FictionDark FantasyVikingsSwordShield
Book:Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga
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“Exciting News! BookLife Reviews, a division of Publishers Weekly, has given TORN its “Editor’s Pick” designation, a high honor given to independently published books that are deemed to be of outstanding quality by their editorial team! Their review said, in part, “This ambitious, vividly detailed, sometimes dense novel demonstrates that Snodgrass knows his patch of America like Faulkner knew Yoknapatawpha or Donald Harrington knew Stay More.”

Historical FictionLiterary FictionWwiNew NovelMill TownPittsburgh Author
Book:Torn
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“Benedick Scott was on his way to freedom or profound failure or, if the usual order of things held up, both. Two chests, strapped closed and marked for delivery to an apartment in Manhattan, sat at the end of his bed. On his person he needed only his typewriter, slung over his shoulder in a battered case. He'd stuffed the case with socks to cushion any dinging, along with his shaving kit, a worn copy of Middlemarch, and thirty-four pages of typed future.”

Young AdultHistorical FictionMuch Ado About Nothing
Book:Speak Easy, Speak Love
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“The only thing he was sorry for was slamming the door and perhaps raising his voice to the woman who'd been like a mother to him since the passing of his parents. Perhaps she hadn't really deserved his reaction, but he was, justifiably, weary of their meddling and hearing about his father's will. Apparently no suitable maiden was going to appear on his doorstep. He seemed to be looking for a needle in a haystack.”

HumorRomanceHistorical FictionRomance NovelsHistorical RomanceRegency RomanceRegency EraRegencyInspirational RomanceRegency EnglandInspirational Romance Love
Book:To Find a Duchess
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“On an idyllic summer day, we walked through the meadows and hillsides, sitting in circles, laughing and filling sacks of cottongrass, salmonberries, crowberries, cranberries, mountain alder, northern golden rod, and rose hip roots. We collected cloudberry tea and Labrador tea, and wild celery. The Elders walked together, laughing, talking of the old days when they would travel to the Messenger Feasts, across the channel to Siberia, or south to trade in Qikiqtaġruk. We’d mix a dessert of fresh berries and lard, whipping and whipping the lard until fluffy.”

Historical FictionArcticIndigenous PeoplesHealersInupiaqHealing PlantsMessenger FeastsQikiqtagrukTraditional MedicineTraditional Plants
Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor
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“But God knew how he missed the sea. He missed it in the sun, in the wind and the dark. He even missed the hiss of rain sweeping across it. He missed the dancing sunlight, its ever-shifting tint and hue, scudding cloud and shadow – dappled, ruffled, heaving, waves ridden by white horses, spume streaked, fierce and shrieking. He missed its limitless, open call, its ungoverned, unchecked freedom, the pull of the horizon, an unknown shore, clarity and unfathomable deep. Most of all he missed the 'mordroz': the sound of the sea, its soothing whisper, its pounding drum, its howling fury. For the sea called to him still; it was in his blood, wanted him back, sucked at his soul, clawing, smothering, dragging him down, a restless lover, a shining temptress that could never be sated.”

SeaHistorical FictionRenaissance17th CenturyRealistic FictionCornwallBritish LiteratureEnglish Civil WarWar FictionCornish
Book:The Keys of Hell and Death
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“JAKE BAKER JOINING THE UNION ARMY IN NEW ORLEANS "I'd prefer to be back in Texas, taking aim at the Rebs..., but I just can't do that," said Jake. ..."So, I'll just do what I can do, I guess." "I suspect that goes for all of us," said the Colonel. "Maybe we should make that the unit's motto. 'The First Texas Cavalry of the United States of America: We'll just do what we can do, we guess.' It does have a ring to it, but I expect that we need somethin' a bit more inspirational and less true.”

Civil WarHistorical FictionWar Fiction
Book:The Sharpshooter 1862-1864
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“The prisoners, feral and maddened by thirst, tried to snatch discarded watermelon rinds lying along the road or to drink from muddy puddles nearby. At first, the NKVD guards simply shot those who dared rush toward the water. But soon the situation slipped out of control. When a small puddle flashed in the sun, all the prisoners surged toward this miserable source of water, ignoring fear of death, desperate shouts, and gunfire from the guards. They fought wildly, beating one another for the right to press their lips to the life-giving moisture. Peter reached the puddle among the first, but several men were already lying in it, gulping greedily and blocking others. In a fit of rage, Peter grabbed one of them by the clothes, flung him several meters aside, collapsed into his place — and fused his mouth to the water. He drank frantically. For the first few minutes, he felt nothing but a dizzying mix of rapture, pleasure, and joy as his thirst was quenched. Only when mud replaced water in his mouth did awareness of what was happening slowly begin to return. — Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One Context note: During a prisoner transport in Stalin’s USSR in the early years of World War II, extreme thirst drove Gulag inmates to the edge of madness. Even filthy puddles became objects of violent struggle, exposing how wartime Soviet repression reduced human survival to pure instinct.”

Historical FictionWorld War IiTotalitarianismDehumanizationStalinismPolitical PrisonersGulagSoviet HistoryNkvdDeath Marchers
Book:Камінь. Біографічний роман. Книга перша. Перші кроки до світла та назад: Дитинство та занурення в ГУЛАГ.
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“Osmanlı Karaman beylikleri arasındaki mücadeleyi anlatan, ayrıca şaman bir karakterin şamanlık gelişimiyle tüyleri diken diken eden ayrıntılar sunan tarihi roman serisinin ikinci kitabı da akıcı, tarihi bilgilerle dolu doluydu. Üstelik Edirne'den çıkan karakterlerin ilgi çekici mekanlara olan seyahatlari beni tarihi bir yolculuğa çıkardı. Çok keyif aldım. Kumru ve Bengi diğer Osmanlı şehzadeleri ile Edirne'den çıkıp ikinci Osmanlı payitahtı Bursa'ya ve çevredeki başka şehirlere gittiler. Bursa'nın tasvirleri çok hoşuma gitti. Ayrıca diğer karakterlerin de kişisel gelişimine daha çok girildi. Kötü olduğunu sandığımız bazı kişilerin aslında daha karmaşık karakterlere sahip iyi-kötü arasında kişiler olduğunu görmüş oldum. Bu da kitap okurken keyif aldığım bir noktadır çünkü hiçbir insan sadece iyi sadece kötü değildir. Karakterler kişilikler psikolojik değişimler katman katman açılır, bu konuda da çok tatmin oldum. Kitap herkesin bildiği ünlü Ankara Savaşı ile sona erdi ve savaş sahnelerinde her şey gözümde apaçık canlandı. Olaylar açılırken ve sırlar ortaya çıkarken savaş alanında kılıç kullanan şehzadelerin bazılarının babalarını savaş alanında bırakıp kaçması çok acıklıydı. Dönem tarihini biraz bilenler Ankara savaşında kimlerin kaçtığını iyi bilir :D Sonuç olarak Larende'nin Varisleri çok keyif aldığım ve herkese tavsiye ettiğim bir kitaptı.”

Historical FictionTurkish LiteratureTurkish WritersHistory QuotesOttoman EmpireOttomanTarihi RomanTarihi KurguOsmanlı DevletiAnadolu Beylikleri
Book:Larende’nin Varisleri Larende’nin Aynası Kısım -2
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“Jess Pepper's review of the Avalon Strings: 'In a land so very civilized and modern as ours, it is unpopular to suggest that the mystical isle of Avalon ever truly existed. But I believe I have found proof of it right here in Manhattan. To understand my reasoning, you must recall first that enchanting tale of a mist-enshrouded isle where medieval women--descended from the gods--spawned heroic men. Most notable among these was the young King Arthur. In their most secret confessions, these mystic heroes acknowledged Avalon, and particularly the music of its maidens, as the source of their power. Many a school boy has wept reading of Young King Arthur standing silent on the shore as the magical isle disappears from view, shrouded in mist. The boy longs as Arthur did to leap the bank and pilot his canoe to the distant, singing atoll. To rejoin nymphs who guard in the depths of their water caves the meaning of life. To feel again the power that burns within. But knowledge fades and memory dims, and schoolboys grow up. As the legend goes, the way became unknown to mortal man. Only woman could navigate the treacherous blanket of white that dipped and swirled at the surface of the water. And with its fading went also the music of the fabled isle. Harps and strings that heralded the dawn and incited robed maidens to dance evaporated into the mists of time, and silence ruled. But I tell you, Kind Reader, that the music of Avalon lives. The spirit that enchanted knights in chain mail long eons ago is reborn in our fair city, in our own small band of fair maids who tap that legendary spirit to make music as the Avalon Strings. Theirs is no common gift. Theirs is no ordinary sound. It is driven by a fire from within, borne on fingers bloodied by repetition. Minds tormented by a thirst for perfection. And most startling of all is the voice that rises above, the stunning virtuoso whose example leads her small company to higher planes. Could any other collection of musicians achieve the heights of this illustrious few? I think not. I believe, Friends of the City, that when we witnes their performance, as we may almost nightly at the Warwick Hotel, we witness history's gift to this moment in time. And for a few brief moments in the presence of these maids, we witness the fiery spirit that endured and escaped the obliterating mists of Avalon.”

MusicHistorical FictionOrchestraAvalon
Book:The Devil's Dime
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“Elsa's mother no longer spoke to her of men and love, but of duty and fate and accepting one’s burden. As far as Elsa could tell, if love really was the inherited female domain, then women were saddled with the biggest burden of all. It was pressing down upon them, the way the sea pressed down upon the creatures of the deep.”

SuspenseHistorical FictionLiterary FictionRomance NovelWomen S FictionHistorical Fiction Mystery
Book:Standing in the Whale's Jaw
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“Rooks have clustered on either side of the long road. It is as if they line a grand parade route for our passage. Their black feathers are stark as soot against the white road and the snow. They stab at the ground with their strange bare bills and gray unfeathered faces. The birds are like rough-edged black stones on a string around this stripped cold neck of road. The old books tell us rooks bring the virtuous dead to heaven’s gate.”

HistoricalHistorical FictionMedievalHistorical Fiction Mystery
Book:Sinful Folk
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“The engorged moon hung full and low in the sky like a yellow skull. Misshapen clouds stretched across the floating orb with elongated hands and bony fingers grasping. As they neared the docks, the gas lamps grew fewer and the streets gloomier. The cobblestones blackened as they passed the deserted brickfields. Bottle-shaped kilns spat their outrage with orange tongues of fire into the cooling air. Mangy dogs snarled in hunger and wandering sea-gulls screamed their displeasure at the hansom’s passage.”

Book QuotesHistorical FictionHistorical RomanceBook QuoteHistorical Romance FictionHistorical Fiction Mystery
Book:The Wolf of Dorian Gray: A Werewolf Spawned by the Evil of Man
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