Lauren Willig Quotes

• Old books exert a strange fascination for me -- their smell, their feel, their history; wondering who might have owned them, how they lived, what they felt.

  Lauren Willig

  Book, Reading, Smell

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Orchid Affair: A Pink Carnation Novel”, p.131, Penguin

  45 Copy quote

• There is, I have heard, a little thing called sunrise, in which the sun reverses the process we all viewed the night before. You might assume such a thing as mythical as those beasts that guard the corners of the earth, but I have it on the finest authority, and have, indeed, from time to time, regarded it with my own eyes.

  Lauren Willig

  Eye, Night, Sunrise

  Lauren Willig (2012). “The Garden Intrigue: A Pink Carnation Novel”, p.145, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

• Patience is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for.

  Lauren Willig

  Waiting, Virtue, Worth Waiting For

  Lauren Willig (2013). “The Ashford Affair”, p.249, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• But that initial, comet-blazing-across-the-sky, Big Idea is only the beginning. Each book is composed of a mosaic of thousands of little ideas, ideas that invariably come to me at two in the morning when my alarm is set for seven.

  Lauren Willig

  Morning, Book, Writing

  15 Copy quote

• Hard to believe that so nearby, just across the Channel, such atrocities could still occur in their supposedly civilized world, that one could wake up one morning and find oneself bereft of brothers, parents, friends, all with the slice of an ax.

  Lauren Willig

  Morning, Brother, Believe

  Lauren Willig (2010). “The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas”, p.65, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• It is a truth universally acknowledged that one only comes up with clever, cutting remarks long after the other party is happily slumbering away.

  Lauren Willig

  Clever, Party, Cutting

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Secret History of the Pink Carnation”, p.232, Allison & Busby

  4 Copy quote

• They were a strange and mercantile people, these Americans. One never knew what they might come up with next.

  Lauren Willig

  People, Might, Next

  Lauren Willig (2012). “The Garden Intrigue: A Pink Carnation Novel”, p.89, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• There's nothing so attractive as a blank slate. Take one attractive man, slap on a thick coat of daydream, and voila, the perfect man. With absolutely no resemblance to reality.

  Lauren Willig

  Reality, Men, Perfect

  Lauren Willig (2007). “The Deception of the Emerald Ring”, p.112, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Love doesn't attack; it infiltrates.

  Lauren Willig

  4 Copy quote

• Why was it that cheering expressions were invariably so infuriating?

  Lauren Willig

  Cheer, Expression, Infuriating

  Lauren Willig (2012). “The Garden Intrigue: A Pink Carnation Novel”, p.51, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• I know historians aren't supposed to fall in love with their own theories, but I was head over heels about the notion of an entire band of female French agents, like a nineteenth-century Charlie's Angels. Only better. It made the Pink Carnation's organization look positively humdrum.

  Lauren Willig

  Falling In Love, Angel, Organization

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Deception of the Emerald Ring”, p.258, Allison & Busby

  9 Copy quote

• It was the usual sort of academic battle: footnotes at ten paces, bolstered by snide articles in academic journals and lots of sniping about methodology, a thrust and parry of source and countersource. My sources had to be better.

  Lauren Willig

  Battle, Usual, Sniping

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Deception of the Emerald Ring”, p.13, Allison & Busby

  4 Copy quote

• LIPID (Last Idiot Person I Dated) syndrome: a largely undiagnosed but pervasive disease that afflicts single women.

  Lauren Willig

  Disease, Lasts, Idiot

  Lauren Willig (2005). “The Secret History of the Pink Carnation”, p.247, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Amazing what the application of a knitting needle could do for one's manners.

  Lauren Willig

  Knitting, Manners, Needles

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Orchid Affair: A Pink Carnation Novel”, p.299, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Tell them I have the headache--no, the plague! I need something nice and contagious.

  Lauren Willig

  Nice, Needs, Headache

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Secret History of the Pink Carnation”, p.38, Allison & Busby

  4 Copy quote

• They were close enough that he could feel the hurried beat of her heart. He could feel Charlotte's indecision in every word she didn't say and every move she didn't make. She was tense with uncertainty, quivering with irresolution. She might not be leaning into him, but she wasn't pulling away, either.

  Lauren Willig

  Moving, Heart, Might

  6 Copy quote

• The French just said he was a damned nuisance. Or they would have had they the good fortune to speak English. Instead being French they were forced to say it in their own language.

  Lauren Willig

  Speak English, Nuisance, Language

  Lauren Willig (2015). “The Lure of the Moonflower: A Pink Carnation Novel”, p.259, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• It was lovely to see cynicism in one so young. It positively restored his faith in human nature.

  Lauren Willig

  Lovely, Human Nature, Cynicism

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Seduction of the Crimson Rose”, p.60, Allison & Busby

  4 Copy quote

• Quite definitely a Bingley

  Lauren Willig

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Mischief of the Mistletoe”, p.50, Allison & Busby

  4 Copy quote

• I love the sound of words, the feel of them, the flow of them. I love the challenge of finding just that perfect combination of words to describe a curl of the lip, a tilt of the chin, a change in the atmosphere. Done well, novel-writing can combine lyricism with practicality in a way that makes one think of grand tapestries, both functional and beautiful. Fifty years from now, I imagine I’ll still be questing after just that right combination of words.

  Lauren Willig

  Beautiful, Writing, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• Miles was still mourning the loss of his Romantic Plan. 'There was going to be champagne, and oysters, and you' - he held out both hands as though shifting a piece of furniture - 'were going to be sitting there, and I was going to get down on one knee, and...and...

  Lauren Willig

  Loss, Hands, Oysters

  4 Copy quote

• Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history’s illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities.

  Lauren Willig

  Cousin, Reality, Historical Novels

  5 Copy quote

• Gentlemen do so appreciate a nicely trimmed décolletage.

  Lauren Willig

  Appreciate, Gentleman

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Seduction of the Crimson Rose”, p.51, Allison & Busby

  4 Copy quote

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