I am a huge admirer of Elizabeth I, and this intriguing biography gives a wonderful picture of the era.

Even the most powerful woman needs a place to unwind.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I work eight hours a day, but I'm not writing all that time. I'm thinking, editing, looking something up. Thinking is what I do a lot of.

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

I need solitude for my writing

I became the fractured shell of a mustard seed to dwell for an eye-blink amid a starburst galaxy of broken dreams.

Evil is like a shadow. It follows you.

When you're in bad mood, you find jerk on anywhere.

I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.

There's no greater misfortune than dying alone.

God will not pour fresh, creative ideas and blessing into old attitudes.

The real end of the world is the destruction of the spirit; the other kind depends on the insignificant attempt to see whether after such a destruction the world can go on.

Yes, it's rather funny, really, that next to no-one realized the snake that Harry set free in Philosopher's Stone turned out to be Voldemort's final Horcrux, Nagini.