An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and has no hair under her arms.

More and more I am learning to let go of urgency and to let my soul sink deeply and refreshingly into contemplation of the joy of the Spirit.

Be careful your footsteps do not stumble by the stumbling stone.

There's nowhere that life feels more eternal, your dimwit youth more important, than Paris.

There's no such thing as a crowded battlefield. Battlefields are lonely places.

My kids are more precious to me than anything. I'm with them all day, and I write all night.

What are they doing, examining last month's costs with a microscope when they should be surveying the horizon with a telescope?

I try to always stretch myself to fit the characters that have been presented.

As a property developer, I learned a long time ago to choose your battles wisely and that, unfortunately, compromise is a given.

Your children tell you casually years later what it would have killed you with worry to know at the time.

You can smile when your heart is breaking because you are a woman, and a courtier, and a Howard. That's three reasons for being the most deceitful creature on God's earth.