Victoria Holt Quotes

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.

I wanted to learn more of love- that is built not on the shifting sands of violent passion but on the steady rock of deep and abiding affection.

We are born, we suffer, we love, we die, but the waves continue to beat upon the rocks; the seed time and the harvest come and go, but the earth remains.

They say that one chooses one’s friends, but one’s relations are thrust upon one.

Ha! Rollo!

The more I disliked myself the more wretched I grew. The difference now was that this mood did not manifest itself in sullen silence; I merely made use of my barbed tongue to wound them and spoil their pleasure.

Never underestimate yourself, Miss Jessie. People are going to think you’re not up to much if you think that way yourself.

When one grows older one learns that happiness—complete and unadulterated happiness—comes only in moments, and must be recognized and savored to the full, for even in the happiest life, the complete joy is not always present.

He had all the most charming and irresistible gestures that a girl deeply in love looks for and who refuses to tell herself that they may have been acquired through long practice.

You always look as though you think people aren't going to like you--that's your trouble.

But somehow at the back of my mind was the feeling that if I did “the sensible thing” I would regret it, for I would be choosing a way of life that would be so predictable, it would rob me of all the excitement that made up the savor of living. If

How strange is life. Suddenly when one has almost made up one’s mind to a certain action it casually throws an opportunity into one’s path.

So, Kerensa, you should never regret any experience, good or evil; for there's some good in what's bad just as there be bad in good...

Victoria Holt

On my first visit, some years ago, I passed the time on the long flight from London reading a history of Australian politics in the twentieth century, wherein I encountered the startling fact that in 1967 the Prime Minister, Harold Holt, was strolling along a beach in Victoria when he plunged into the surf and vanished. No trace of the poor man was ever seen again. This seemed doubly astounding to me – first that Australia could just lose a Prime Minister (I mean, come on) and second that news of this had never reached me.

People don’t always see what their eyes tell them is there. They see what they have made up their minds to see, and I’m afraid they might make up their minds that something done by a woman could not possibly be as good as that done by a man.

It seemed I had briefly stepped into a world where people did wild things and paid for them; but it had made me see that there was more to life than being comfortable and living one day after another, quietly, unadventurously, almost like waiting for death.

. . . Birmingham City Council was playing third time lucky with the design of the city's celebrated Victoria Square . . .

there was more to life than being comfortable and living one day after another, quietly, unadventurously, almost like waiting for death.

A man condemns himself to failure if he thinks that he won't succeed.

It will be a compromise, but that's what the marriage often is

Never take anything for granted, Miss Jessie. If you do you might lose it. If it’s worth cherishing, cherish it.

I was excited because getting to know oneself was exciting. I was beginning to believe that I had the power to influence my own personality.

You persuade yourself that all is well even though you are feeling bored or unfulfilled and you are not sure if your husband or wife is your Soul mate. You have tried your best and you have created a pretty good life for yourself despite your circumstances. ‘At least you are safe’ your damaged self whispers. ‘At least no one suspects how wounded you are. In fact, I do not even think you are damaged anymore. Look at your nice home, your spouse, your career status, your wealth and all of your nice possessions. You are a success, you fool.

Do you know, when I stepped through that gate I felt as though I had walked into a new world...something quite different from anything I had known before. I felt that something tremendously dramatic was happening and because it was all so quiet and in a way ordinary that made it rather sinister.

can …’ As I listened, I looked up at the white clouds drifting past. Finally, they had opened – it had started to snow – snowflakes were falling outside. I opened the window and reached out my hand. I caught a snowflake. I watched it disappear, vanish from my fingertip. I smiled. And I went to catch another one. Acknowledgements I’m hugely indebted to my agent, Sam Copeland, for making all this happen. And I’m especially grateful to my editors – Ben Willis in the United Kingdom and Ryan Doherty in the United States – for making the book so much better. I also want to thank Hal Jensen and Ivàn Fernandez Soto for their invaluable comments; Kate White for years of showing me how good therapy works; the young people and staff at Northgate and everything they taught me; Diane Medak for letting me use her house as a writing retreat; Uma Thurman and James Haslam for making me a better writer. And for all their helpful suggestions, and encouragement, Emily Holt, Victoria Holt, Vanessa Holt, Nedie Antoniades, and Joe Adams. Author Biography Alex Michaelides read English at Cambridge University and screenwriting at the American Film Institute. He wrote the film Devil You Know starring Rosamund Pike, and co-wrote The Con is On. His debut novel, The Silent Patient, is also being developed into a major motion picture, and has been sold in thirty-nine territories worldwide. Born in Cyprus to a Greek-Cypriot father and English mother, Michaelides now lives in London, England.

I was with my father at the end. He held my hand and I could see that he was at peace. Colin

I had come to the end of a path and I did not know which way to go. And there was the easy road to take and everyone was pushing me toward it. “What

We make our own luck. If you believe in ill luck, it will surely come.

I was sure I could bring him back to health. He died…a

Dust was dangerous, I insisted. Insects bred in it.

I did not wish her to go on in this strain because her poverty was something which obsessed her and like all obsessions was boring to other people.

Daphne Du Maurier and Anya Seton, all of Mary Stewart’s early books, along with Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney,

You spent your lie preparing revenge. You should've spent it seeking happiness.

A man is proud until he falls.

Plants won't wither if we always water them. So it's, also, with the memories. It's good, when they're pleasant, but if they aren't, then it's madness.

It's an offense of majesty to love Olympic gods like common mortals. Shouldn't they be just worshiped?

They’re like people, no two alike. That’s one of the marvels of the universe… all those people… all those opals… and not two exactly alike.

We act of our own free will, and if we find life too much to be borne, then clearly there’s no one to blame but ourselves.

I often wondered afterwards why we do not have premonitions in life. . . to warn us. . . to guide us. . . But no, the important moments in our life slip by with no special seeming significance.

I wonder why they always wanted to frighten people away. People who want to frighten others are very often frightened themselves.

You've no idea what my home is like. I myself had forgotten during all those years I was away. It's a dark house... and I don't mean that there's just an absence of sunshine... I mean the people in it live dark lives...

house but I was completely at liberty to walk

The home I had talked of to my companions had been the home I wanted, not the one I knew.

But now the time for dreaming was over. I had to face what was - not what I wished it to be.

I had swept away the old cobwebs of time and let in the bright sunshine.

I have my flights of fancy. You and I are like those ships. We are caught in the shivering sands of the past. We shall never escape because we are held fast, held by our memories and other people’s opinions of us.

I finished the sonata and to my surprise the next piece was Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre, an unusual choice I thought. I began to play. I thought of Pietro who had always brought something indescribably spine-chilling into the playing of this piece. He said that when he played it, he saw the musician as a kind of pied piper who, instead of luring children into the mountain side, brought people out of their graves to dance round the piper…in the dance of death.

VICTORIA, in a letter to her granddaughter Princess Victoria of Hesse, 22 August 1883

least

I asked her to teach me, too, but she said it was something you taught yourself by keeping your eyes and ears open, and learning about people — for human nature was the same all the world over; there was so much bad in the good and so much good in the bad, that it was all a matter of weighing up how much good or bad had been allotted to each one.

I like a work of art for what it means to me.

I despise you,” I said. “That is of no consequence. You are caught. There is no escape for you. You are wise enough to know that.” “Please keep away from me.” “Why, when I am pleased to be near you.” “You are wicked.

It has always astonished me how changes come into one's life. The gradual change becomes acceptable, but sudden shock, presenting itself without warning to shatter the existence so completely that nothing will ever be the same again, makes me uneasily aware of the perpetual uncertainties of life.

He could see I meant what I said, and was temporarily defeated. He walked past me and into the corridor; his eyes were angry and malevolent. I was horrified because I realized that he really believed I would have become his mistress that night.

In spite of my efforts I could not free myself. He caught me to me and I felt his teeth against mine. I kept mine firmly clenched and I hated him. I hated him so fiercely that I found a certain pleasure in my hatred. In that moment he had aroused an emotion in me that I had never felt before. It was not without desire. Perhaps, I thought later when I was alone and trying to analyze my feelings, the desire I felt was for a house, for a different station of life then that into which I had been born, for a fulfillment of a dream. My desire for these things was so fierce that perhaps another kind of desire could be aroused by anyone who could give me them; and his words about marriage had put an idea into my mind.

Did it really happen as the legend said? Did they in truth dance here? Were they struck down in their defiance and turned to stone, to stand on this spot as the centuries passed? How fortunate they were! Sudden death was preferable to a lingering one. I thought of the seventh – the one who had been dragged to the hollow wall, the one who was shut in to die; and I was filled with a momentary melancholy.

Sometimes I sit at my window looking out on the towers of the Abbas and weep silently. No one must know how I suffered. No one must know how I failed. Sometimes I go and stand in the ring of stones and it seems to me that my fate is more wretched then theirs. They were turned to stone while they were dancing defiance. I wish I could have been.

Why should this happen to me when I planned and worked… and came so far?