Barbara Taylor Bradford Quotes

We are each the authors of our own lives, Emma. We live in what we have created. There is no way to shift the blame and no one else to accept the accolades.

The past was always there, lived inside of you, and it helped to make you who you were. But it had to be placed in perspective. The past could not dominate the future.

Successful women don't sleep until noon.

A person with taste is merely one who can recognize the greatest beauty in the simplest things.

Never let stress shape your strategy. Most women think better after a brisk walk, a light meal, a massage and a nap.

Even the most powerful woman needs a place to unwind.

Life always gets harder towards the summit - the cold increases, responsibility increases

She put her hand in his, and he clasped it firmly, knowing he had been waiting for her all his life.

What is done can never be undone.

My dear girl, you must cultivate a taste for the finer things. Civilized pleasures give meaning to life.

Always present yourself as a woman who expects to succeed.

In my opinion, moderation is a vastly overrated virtue, particularly when applied to work

Priceless things matter not for their value, but because they offer us an enduring reminder of stability and permanence.

This parting cannot be for long; for those who love as we do cannot be parted. We shall always be united in thought, and thought is a great magnet. I have often spoken to thee of reason, now i speak to thee of faith

Life was life. It happened. You never knew what was going to come at you. Or how you could defend yourself.

I'm not ancient, darling. I'm only fifty. And when it comes to sex a woman of fifty can often outlast a man half her age.

Edwina always enjoyed a morning ride. Some mornings she rode the horse, and some mornings she rode the groom.

Sleeping with a man half your age can be exhausting, but if it's too much for him you can always find a younger man.

He who ascends to mountaintops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below

Yes, damn it, I love you! But the bedroom is not the boardroom, Robert. In the boardroom only one person can be in charge.

It's all right, darling. I'll finish the financial report on my own. I can think clearly before sex and stay awake afterwards. That's one of the nice things about being a woman.

Love is a handful of seeds, marriage the garden, and like your gardens, Paula, marriage requires total commitment, hard work, and a great deal of love and care. Be ruthless with the weeds. Pull them out before they take hold. Bring the same dedication to your marriage that you do to your gardens and everything will be all right. Remember that a marriage has to be constantly replenished too, if you want it to flourish...

Elizabeth lay face-down on the massage table, and allowed Marco to relieve the stress of the business day with firm and knowing fingers. Success, she decided, was often a matter of knowing when to relax.

You can be with a man for twenty years and never really know who he truly is. Then again, you can meet a man and know everything about him in an instant.

Elizabeth studied the blurry tabloid photo, which showed her cousin Mary Stuart leaving a Paris disco at dawn, drunkenly clinging to the arm of a French tennis pro. The message was very clear. Put passion first and you end up neither loved nor respected.

It's different when the person you love dies. There's an awful finality to death. But it is final. The end. And there's the funeral, family gatherings, grieving, all of those necessary rituals. And they help, believe me. When the object of your love just disappears, there's no way to deal with the grief and pain.

At the age of fifty-six Eleanor Stoddard was still a beautiful woman. She owned three hotels in France and another two in England. From nothing at all, she had built an empire. Eleanor had it all. Her one weakness was the young man sleeping beside her.

He's half my ex-husband's age, but twice as energetic when we have sex. And twice as grateful afterwards.

Yesterday is not ours to recover but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

Memories, James thought, thank God we have them. They help us to recall what’s long gone, and we can live again in the past with those we once loved.

Mary never made it to the board meeting. Cunning Elizabeth simply arranged for her cousin's tennis instructor to "delay" her for an hour or two. The man was evidently a superb athlete, though it was entirely Mary's fault that she fell asleep afterwards. Elizabeth took control of the company that very afternoon, by a vote of six to one, while a sated Mary slept. And the silly girl never knew what hit her.

You know what they say, darling. When an older man seeks out younger women, he's virile. When an older woman seeks out younger men, she's desperate. Well, color me desperate, then. Because I want you, Harris Clayton. And I'm a woman who's very good at getting what she wants! Now come back to bed, darling, and let's forget all about everything except the way we feel.

Vedi quest’uomo seduto qui? Una volta era un bambino, un bambino che era stato mandato via, allontanato dal padre che amava, dalla famiglia che amava, dalla casa in cui era nato e che amava. Era stato mandato via dal Paese che amava, spedito senza alcun riguardo in un Paese che non conosceva, a costruirsi la vita fra estranei. Gettato via come spazzatura. Pensi che questo uomo, che una volta era un bambino, costringerebbe la donna che ama più di chiunque altro al mondo a dare via il suo? Non in un milione di anni, mai. Daphne, il bambino che porti nel ventre è un Ingham e io sono sia Ingham sia Stanton. E che sia dannato se a far crescere questo bambino non sarò io stesso.»

We are each the authors of our own lives, Emma. We live in what we have created. There is no way to shift the blame and no one else to accept the accolades.

The whole enchilada, kid.

There are some people who hate for no reason at all. They just simply hate. They do not realize that their unjustified hatred inevitably turns inward to destroy them. Yes, it is self-destructive in the long run.

Elizabeth was counting on Marco to keep cousin Mary occupied until after the board meeting was over. A piece of cheese might catch a mouse, but an afternoon alone with a muscular masseur would ensnare her cousin far more effectively. And afterwards, while Mary lay sated and sleeping upon a massage table, wiser heads could determine the company's future. There were times, Elizabeth thought, when success in business demanded utter ruthlessness.

A une époque de sa vie, il y avait de cela de nombreuses années, elle avait perdu sa foi en Dieu. Elle l'avait maudit, haï, accusé d'être responsable de tous les maux de la terre. Mais le mal n'était pas une création de Dieu. L'homme avait inventé le mal. Finalement, elle avait réussi à pardonner à Dieu.

Edwina knew things with Greg had just about run their course. She'd bedded him, and bought him clothes, and now it was time for the polite push out the door. Of course she wished her latest conquest all the best. If he was lucky, Greg would just fall right into some other powerful woman's bed. If not . . . well, if not he'd just have to do the old-fashioned thing and look for work. Though darling Greggy-poo didn't really seem the type. Edwina studied him while he slept by the pool, drinking in that tight behind and those bulging muscles for the last time. The trouble with younger men, she thought, was that they were so damned good at sex that they really didn't have to be good at anything else.

As the long limousine purred to life Edwina felt as if she were Elizabeth, setting sail to battle the Spanish Armada. She was Elizabeth, damn it! What she had built no one was going to take away from her. Not her house, not her hotels, not her fine stable of horses -- and most especially not the young thoroughbred she had left sleeping by the side of her Olympic-size outdoor pool. Some pleasures, she decided, were simply too enticing to give up.

the canvas the first time I saw

who

We can control so much in our own lives … except what other people say and do. And their actions and their words affect us tremendously.

Emma also had a secret she had shared with no one, not even Blackie. It was a plan, really. But a plan so grand it left no room for doubt, and it filled her days with that most wonderful of all human feelings—hope. It was a hope that foreshadowed all else in her cheerless

chastised when they have misbehaved, and taught the difference between right and wrong. Now, where is my dressing gown?

Indeed I do know what boys are like, especially that horrid little monster, Adele thought, but said, rather shakily, ‘Yes, Emma, you are right to some extent. But occasionally children must be

Emma loved her father and understood the nature of him, but he had disturbed her not a little in the last few months. Her dad just wasn’t the same since he had returned from the Boer War.

Emma had not yet come to understand that when hope is taken away from a man he is left with nothing, sometimes not even the will to live. And all the hope had been kicked out of Jack Harte long ago.

They must have more money if they were to survive, if her mother was to regain her strength and her health. Emma knew that without money you were nothing, just a powerless and oppressed victim of the ruling class, a yoked and shackled beast of burden destined to a life of mindless drudgery, and an existence so wretched and so without hope, so filled with terror and despair that it was hardly worth the contemplation let alone the living.

begun to comprehend that money did not only buy necessities, but so much else as well. She had come to realize that the possessor of money also possessed power, a most desirable asset to Emma, because she knew now that power made you invulnerable. It made you safe. By the same token, Emma had come to bitterly accept the fact that there was no justice or liberty for the poor.

Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

God was good. Her mother had told her that God was Goodness. That He was understanding and forgiving. Emma did not believe in a wrathful God, the God of retribution and revenge that the Methodist minister warned about in his sermons on Sundays. Her mother had said God was Inconceivable Love

Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling. From glen to glen, and down the mountainside. The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling. It’s you, it’s you must go, and I must bide.

to her days and made every hour of punishing toil totally irrelevant. It was this blind belief, this absolute faith in herself and her future, that often put a lively spring into her step, brought an occasional smile to her normally solemn young face, and sustained her at all times.

It’s right funny, when yer think about it. First Polly died, then me mam, and now Mrs Fairley. All in just a few months of each other.’ Cook returned Emma’s concentrated stare. ‘It’s said, in these parts, that everything goes in threes.

I have the heart of a man, not of a woman, and I am not afraid of anything…

I have the heart of a man, not of a woman, and I am not afraid of anything… –ELIZABETH I, Queen of England

He paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men. —JOB

And He will accept her as one of His blessed children, Emma. Sure and He will. His own son, Jesus, said, “Suffer little children to come unto

me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God.” Please, believe me, it’s the baptism and the spirit of love behind it that counts, and not the man that does it, or where it’s done. We need neither a church nor a font,

Happiness didn’t get diluted by rain.

the division. Hundreds and hundreds plunged into the fighting with their major at the head. All around James and his men, the new Lewis machine guns ratter-tattered incessantly. Cannon boomed. Tanks rolled. The air was thick with smoke from the smoke bombs thrown by the Royal Engineers into no-man’s land to screen the soldiers now entering the area. The smell of cordite, blood and human waste floated around them. But all were unaware, determined as they were to win. Defeat was not a word in their vocabulary. Many of the men were killed instantly. Two hours into the battle, James was hit in both legs by machine-gun fire. He fell, still clutching his baton. He felt the bullets hit him and the pain was intense, unbearable. He wanted to touch his legs but couldn’t sit up. He groaned, and at that moment he knew he was going to die. What a way to go, he thought … on a foreign field because of a useless war. He closed his eyes as a wave of agony gripped him. Half an hour later, it was Lieutenant Stead who found him and pulled him as far away from the fighting as he could. James was unconscious, his skin clammy. The lieutenant felt for a pulse and was relieved that the major had one, weak as it was. A few seconds later, Captain Allan Lister was on the scene to assist him, along with two stretcher-bearers and a stretcher. Together, dodging through the crowds of fighting soldiers, they carried James to the Casualty Clearing Station, a large medical tent. A team of army doctors took over at once. They could give no reassurance to the lieutenant and the captain that their major would live, despite their efforts.

overnight. It had been

make money. To keep myself

arm more tightly, as much to quell her own fears as give support to Adele. When they finally reached the hall, Adele looked around swiftly and then she also shivered and drew her robe about her. It seemed

tries, and tries very hard, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to be the sole survivor, the only one left of one’s contemporaries. They’ve all gone now. They’re all dead and buried. My dearest friends, my loved ones. Even my enemies are no longer around to get my goat and spark the will in me to fight.

The clock in the church tower

once that each of us is the author of our own lives? That we are responsible for what we are? For the deeds, both good and bad, that we do?

Honor women: They wreathe and weave Heavenly roses into earthly life. —Johann von Schiller

breathed with relief and finished setting

most disturbing part of the meeting had been Sarah’s blatant dislike

why would it? He had won, and

enjoyed both places. But it’s nice

name petrel is supposedly a diminutive of Peter. You see, when it’s feeding, the bird appears to hover just above the water, and its feet look as if they’re pattering on the surface of the sea. One gets a sense that it’s walking on water, the way St. Peter did in the Bible story, hence its name petrel, for Peter.

a damp June morning Emma accompanied them

was

Emma.

Linnet’s girlfriends might strike my fancy.” Evan and Gideon laughed, and Evan

kitchen, where he buried it deep within the

fraction of a second, before asking,

touching

Killed so tragically in a plane crash, in a plane he was flying himself; David Amory, her grandfather, who was aboard that plane,

Because people are always afraid of what they do not know, what they do not understand, the unfamiliar or the different, and that fear invariably turns to hate. Unreasoned hatred that makes no sense. In

meant well, and they had all been very good to her. Mrs Thornton was forever telling her to consider The Meadow her home, and she had even turned the little box room at the end of the second-floor landing into a bedroom for her. Mrs Thornton had insisted she keep a few clothes there, and when she had visited Gwen in November she had left behind

perspicacity,

a photojournalist. Eventually she had come to understand

I didn’t think he would, but I do believe I was right to ask for his discretion.’ ‘Thank you, Lady Daphne,’ Wilson

La semaine dernière, nous avons pris une décision. Nous allions sortir pour déblayer les briques. Des femmes de notre quartier y travaillaient quotidiennement. Les Trümmerfrauen. Elles nettoyaient les briques de toute trace de ciment. Elles empilaient dans des brouettes. Les emportaient dans un dépôt. On utiliserait les briques pour recronstruire Berlin. Une tâche utile, mais épuisante.

Why him?He was as likely to offer me security and safety as a violent terrorist holding a gun to my head.So why I had chosen him?Because he had charmed me into a love affair,had truly convinced me he was madly in love with me.

inert and seemingly lifeless.

supervise the gardener who had taken over from him. She was very fond of Harry,

probably

moment, and began muttering to himself.

Blackie was safe and would continue to be safe and that he would come home to her when the war was over. Her unwavering faith in Almighty God was the rock upon which her life was built,

The person loved was gone but there were always the others, the ones left behind to mourn. The sadness of life is ever present, Laura thought, and yet there is joy in life, too. Joy like the child she was carrying. The child she yearned to give Blackie. She placed her hands across her stomach protectively and with love, and she thanked God she had not miscarried this time. Yes, there was death, but there was also birth. A continual renewal… the endless cycle that was eternal, that was man’s inexorable fate.

And then her consummate hatred for the Fairleys, so close to the surface, rose up again and took hold of her, jostling against the grief for prominence in her mind. Was there no end to the pain that family would cause her? Was she to be cursed with them all the days of her life? Damn the Fairleys. All of them. Damn them! Damn them! Damn them! May they rot in hell!

Why were those horrid boys throwing stones at you?’ ‘Because I am a Jew.’ Emma was not actually sure what a Jew was but, always reluctant to display her ignorance on any matter, she chose to disregard his explanation, repeating again, ‘But why would that make them want to throw stones at you?’ The man returned her questioning look steadily. ‘Because people are always afraid of what they do not know, what they do not understand, the unfamiliar or the different

The Jews are a people descended from the Hebrews and the Israelites, from the tribes of Israel. Our religion is called Judaism. It is founded on the Old Testament and the Torah both.’ Emma was listening intently and the

nation. Christianity itself is based on Judaism. Did you not know that?’ Although she loathed to appear illiterate, Emma had to say in all truthfulness, ‘No, I didn’t.’ The man’s bright black eyes searched hers thoughtfully. ‘Jesus Christ was a Jew and Jesus, too, was persecuted.’ He sighed and it was a long, wearisome sigh. ‘I suppose we Jews seem strange to some people, because our customs and dietary laws and form of worship are not the same as the Gentile ways.

the Jews scattered throughout the world over the centuries. To Spain, Germany, Russia, Poland, and many other countries. I myself come from Kiev, in Russia. Most of the Jews in Leeds also come from Russia, or from Poland. We came here to escape the terror and harassment of the pogroms directed against us. I had my baptism of fire in my own country and so, as difficult as things here can be sometimes, they are not as terrible as they were in Russia.