On the Past and Forgiveness
“Have there been mistakes made? Yes. But that is being human. To expect you’d go through life without ever making the wrong move is to hold yourself to a high standard that is unattainable.”
― Her Favorite Duke, Jess Michaels
“If you ever look back and feel a twinge of guilt, Dawn, let it go. All things happen for a purpose—sometimes a larger purpose than we can possibly see at the time.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“We are our futures. We cannot change what has happened, cannot undo what has been done. All we can do is live for tomorrow rather than for yesterday.”
― Earl of Every Sin, Scarlett Scott
“Going back was never possible, and there was no point in wallowing in regrets for what might have been.”
― Someone to Hold, Mary Balogh
”She was an adult now, a different person from that young girl. She could continue to wallow in the disaster of her past and endlessly punish herself for it, or she could forgive the naïve girl she’d been and accept that she was flawed and imperfect.”
― Marry in Haste, Anne Gracie
”She needed to stop looking back, and to begin looking forward. She needed to stop blaming the young girl she’d been for things that had not been her fault, matters that could not be changed. She needed to forgive herself.”
― The Scoundrel in Her Bed, Lorraine Heath
“It is so stupid,”she told him, “to load oneself down with burdens from the past when the past is over and done with. How can one enjoy the present or shape the future when one is forever looking back into perpetual gloom?”
― Slightly Tempted, Mary Balogh
“It seems we’ve both been so tangled up in the past, we were ready to let it ruin our future.”
― Daring Duke, Jess Michaels
“I cannot do anything to change the past. I can influence only the present and the future.”
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“The past ought not to be allowed to cloud the present or obscure the future. Really it did not matter terribly much.”
― Someone to Trust, Mary Balogh
“...life is what you make of it. There is no point in brooding on the past, however bad it might have been. Life is to be lived. And there is still possibly a great deal left for you as well as for me. Is it not wrong to reject the gift of the future?”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“It is a mistake always to blame oneself for the past. And probably a mistake to brood on the past too.”
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“I can’t change the past or how it affects me and my children now, but I can decide to live my life despite my terrible choices. If I was afraid of being hurt by others and what they say to me, I would have to live all my life in hiding. I won’t do that.”
― To Beguile a Beast, Hoyt Elizabeth
“Regrets are pointless,” she said. “They do not change whatever that thing is that one may regret if one allows oneself to do so.”
― Someone to Cherish, Mary Balogh
“I regret much in my life, but there is no point, is there? At this moment we are both in exactly the spot to which we have brought ourselves through our birth and our life experiences, through the myriad choices we have made along the way. The only thing over which we have any control whatsoever is the very next decision we make.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“All he could do now, though, since the past could not be changed, was make amends as best he could and hope that at some time within the next fifty years or so he would be able to forgive himself.“
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
“...is foolish to regret anything from one’s past. Everything that happens helps to shape us into the people we are.”
― Web of Love, Mary Balogh
"Everything that happens in life happens for a purpose. I would not be the person I am if there had not been Jeremy. And I would not wish to be different even if I could be.”
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“Life is always like that," he said gently. "We are what we are because of what has happened to us in the past. We cannot change that and we should not wish to.”
― A Chance Encounter, Mary Balogh
“I would not wish to be without the experiences that have brought me to where I am at this moment.“
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“For if I had not experienced every day of my life that led me to you, I never would have found you.”
― Prince of Persuasion, Scarlett Scott
“Let it be new, unshadowed by the past. If the past had been different, everything would be different now.”
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
“...everything that happens in life can serve a positive purpose, that no time is wasted unless we refuse to learn the lesson that is there in that apparently wasted time.”
― Slightly Tempted, Mary Balogh
“No time is really wasted unless one never learns the lessons that it offers.”
― Only a Kiss, Mary Balogh
“Accepting the past as irrevocable had been a big part of his victory.”
― The Sins of Lord Easterbrook, Madeline Hunter
“Some events of the past were irrevocable. Feeling guilt was pointless.“
― Tangled, Mary Balogh
“She had a choice to make, here and now: live in the ruins of her past or make a new future. Yearn pointlessly for what could not be or try to build something practical and real.”
― The Perfect Stranger, Anne Gracie
“We all do selfish, despicable things from time to time, Wes, but they do not have to define us if we have a conscience strong enough to stop us from becoming selfish and despicable.”
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
”No one is innocent. We all do stupid things, even when we know they are stupid, and even when we know we are causing unhappiness for someone else and for ourselves. Forgiveness is given despite all those things.”
― Someone Perfect, Mary Balogh
“We do terrible things to our own lives and those of the people around us, don’t we?” Grace said. “So many years wasted...”
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“parents, she supposed, were not the pinnacles of perfection their children thought and expected them to be. They were humans who usually did the best they could but often made the wrong choices.”
― Slightly Wicked, Mary Balogh
“It is not easy to hate,” he said, “when one has lived long enough to know that everyone has a difficult path to walk through life and does not always make wise or admirable choices.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“It seems we are all too quick to judge, based upon what we see of a person rather than what we know or are willing to learn about the person.”
― The Scoundrel in Her Bed, Lorraine Heath
“We are all a mess.” He could see the flash of her teeth in the darkness, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I think it must be part of being human.”
― Only Enchanting, Mary Balogh
”I learned that I never wanted to do anything to make another person feel the despair I felt at that moment. It is survivable, and because of it, perhaps I’m a better person than I might have been otherwise.”
― Beauty Tempts the Beast, Lorraine Heath
”Let it all go, the bitterness. People do behave badly, you know. We all do on occasion. We owe it to one another to give a second chance, and sometimes even a third and fourth.”
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“Do not allow bitterness and the injustice with which you were treated change you forever. Live a life filled with love. It is, ultimately, all that matters.”
― Someone Perfect, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps we ought not to fear for such people but for ourselves whose experience has taught us not to trust one another or life itself.”
― Slightly Scandalous, Mary Balogh
“Life is what it is. Society is what it is. There is very little we can do to change either. We must accept what we must and change what we can.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
”Resentment and hatred and grudges are a poison that harms the person who harbors them far more than it harms anyone else.”
― Someone to Trust, Mary Balogh
”...people often hurt themselves more than anyone else when they cling to old hatreds and resentments...”
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
”Bitterness would hurt only her in the end.”
― Tangled, Mary Balogh
”Hatred, grudges were a deadly poison to the soul.”
― Slightly Tempted, Mary Balogh
”...contempt says more about the person giving it than the one receiving.”
― Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh
“...one thing I’ve learned in life is not to waste time in fruitless recrimination—it helps nobody and only embitters you.”
― The Accidental Wedding, Anne Gracie
“We are all in need of forgiveness,” she said. “How can we expect to receive it if we are not also prepared to give it?”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“Why would forgiveness be of any value if it were reserved only for forgivable offenses?”
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
"The past is the past. Nothing can change it now, and who is to say that it was all wrong, anyway? Let's forgive each other and forget, shall we?”
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps there were always a few kind people. Perhaps her cynicism had become too extreme.“
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
”Without trust there is . . . nothing.”
― Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh
“Live well. It is the greatest revenge.“
― The Perfect Kiss, Anne Gracie
“...people can learn much from walking in another’s shoes.”
― The Stolen Princess, Anne Gracie
“We cannot know what another person’s life is like, can we, unless we can live their lives from the inside, and that is impossible.“
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
”...life was not made up of neat blacks and whites but of a vast whirlwind of varying shades of gray. He would no longer beat himself to a pulp over what he had done. Perhaps in doing it he had averted a greater evil. And perhaps not. Who was to know? He could only continue his journey through life, hoping that along with experience he was picking up some wisdom. If there was some darkness in his soul, then there was also a considerable amount of light.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
”He was not defined by what he had done or not done in the past ten years. “Perhaps in recognizing how one ought not to live, one can learn how to live,” she said.”
― Only a Kiss, Mary Balogh
“Now I must live with the consequences of the choice I made. And I will not call it the wrong choice. That would be foolish and pointless. That choice led me to everything that has happened since, including this very moment, and the choices I make today or tomorrow or next week will lead me to the next and next present moments in my life. It is all a journey, Miss Jewell. I have come to understand that that is what life is all about―a journey and the courage and energy always to take the next step and the next without judgement about what was right and what was wrong.”
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
“I do not believe there is right or wrong,” he said. “There is only doing what one must do under given circumstances and living with the consequences and weaving every experience, good and bad, into the fabric of one’s life so that ultimately one can see the pattern of it all and accept the lessons life has taught. We were never expected to achieve perfection in one lifetime, Gwendoline. Religious people would say that is what heaven is for. I think that would be a shame. It’s too easy and too lazy. I would prefer to think that perhaps we are given a second chance—and a third and a thirty―third—to get everything right.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“The trick, George dear, is to know your own heart and decide accordingly. I made my own choices in life, and have no regrets.”
― Marry in Scarlet, Anne Gracie
"We must live the life we were born to," he said. "And try to do it at peace with our consciences.”
― Tangled, Mary Balogh
"...sometimes all the thought and reflection in the world will not reveal clearly what is right and what wrong. You must pray about it and have faith that your decision will be the right one.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“...there were no absolute answers after all, not, at least, to many of the thornier problems of life.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“Most beliefs are neither right nor wrong in themselves. None of them ever contains the whole truth.”
― Only a Promise, Mary Balogh
“That is the excitement of life,” he said when he was finished. “The not knowing. It is often best not to know.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“...we always do blame ourselves even when we know we are innocent. Instead of hoarding a secret sense of guilt, it is better to forgive ourselves.“
― Someone to Trust, Mary Balogh
“And how does one make peace?” Colin asked. “By … forgiving oneself,”
― Someone to Trust, Mary Balogh
“And at the end of the day forgive yourself.”
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
Masks and Personality
“I’m discovering that you can’t look at someone and know the trials they face. We all wear masks.”
― The Duchess in His Bed, Lorraine Heath
“How impossible it was, he thought just as if he were making a startling new discovery, to know people from their outer demeanor. How myriad were the masks people wore.”
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“First appearance deceives many.”
― The Perfect Kiss, Anne Gracie
“All people—all—were a complex product of their heritage, their environment, their upbringing and education and cumulative experiences of life as well as of a basic character and personality with which they were born. Everyone was a rose but even more complex than a mere flower. Everyone was made up of infinitely layered petals.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“It is a rude awakening, is it not, to discover that people change, or that they have other facets to their character that we did not suspect?”
― A Chance Encounter, Mary Balogh
“She had cultivated obedience and gentility and placidity in order to hide the hurt of being a child unwanted by her own mother. She had made herself into the perfect lady to win the love of her adopted family—so that they too would not abandon her.
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“All my life I have shaped myself into being what others expect me to be so that I will belong somewhere, be accepted somewhere, be loved by someone.”
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“If she ever seemed cool, it was because she’d built a wall between herself and the world, so that the world could not hurt her.”
― The Stolen Mackenzie Bride, Jennifer Ashley
“She had come to believe that for twenty―two years she had been only half alive, perhaps not even that much, that she had deliberately suppressed everything in herself that made her human.“
― Someone to Hold, Mary Balogh
“They were all trying to protect themselves from hurt, and in so doing they’d walled themselves up.”
― When a Duke Loves a Woman, Lorraine Heath
“No wonder he seemed so hard and cynical at times and tried so hard not to show he cared about anyone or anything. His father had left him a bitter legacy indeed.“
― The Perfect Kiss, Anne Gracie
“...he had taught himself not to love, not to lay himself open to hurt and humiliation and betrayal.”
― Heartless, Mary Balogh
“All his life, he’d struggled to hide his vulnerabilities beneath a careless façade.”
― A Rake's Midnight Kiss, Anna Campbell
“She was accustomed to hiding from people, even when she was in their plain sight.”
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“Wisdom and discipline. Always guarding one’s real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquillity within a thousand masks.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“He had learned dourness and silence and self―containment as a defense against a world that was often hostile and sometimes downright dangerous...“
― Someone Perfect, Mary Balogh
“He’d lived the wild life, he now knew, because he feared that he’d have to face his true self if he ever ceased drinking, painting, running, always running away.”
― Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage, Jennifer Ashley
”I lived in a constant cycle of distraction to stop myself thinking and feeling.”
― The Broken Heart, Mary Lancaster
”Loneliness, years upon years of it, locked away behind the façade of a libertine. Cameron’s rakehell reputation hid a man broken and numbed long ago, a man seeking physical pleasure because he knew he’d obtain nothing else from life.”
― The Many Sins of Lord Cameron, Jennifer Ashley
“...moroseness is the mask behind which he feels most comfortable.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“...accused her of hiding behind her contentment, too cowardly to reach for happiness.”
― Simply Unforgettable, Mary Balogh
“She had lived a life of the utmost rectitude and propriety and been hurt anyway.“
― Someone to Care, Mary Balogh
“Both wanting to please those around us, never wanting to disappoint or hurt them. And in the end, it made both of us cowards. It made both of us turn away from the future we wanted.”
― Her Favorite Duke, Jess Michaels
“...heart is not something one can control, is it? We want what we want, there is no arguing or negotiating that. In our case, we were each driven by a need not to hurt anyone else. And instead we were all damaged.”
― The Broken Duke, Jess Michaels
“...she was growing mortally tired of propriety, of her prim devotion to a way of life that put all the emphasis upon what was correct rather than upon what one’s heart knew ought to be done. Perhaps the heart was a poor and unreliable guide for behavior, but so surely was cold, blind propriety.”
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“It was strange how the mind and the emotions could be so much at variance...“
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
“...cocoons were meant only to guard the fragility of a new life until it was ready to burst forth into the glory of full life.“
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“...he knew that somewhere beneath layers and layers of cool decorum, behind mask upon mask of gentility, lay a woman desperate to come out into the light but not knowing the way. Like a child waiting to be born but clinging to the familiar, confining safety of the womb.”
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“She was beginning to understand why he was so reserved and cold seeming. He’d grown up not being able to trust the people he should have been able to believe in...”
― Marry in Scarlet, Anne Gracie
“Feelings must have been unbearable to you as a boy, and so you cut them off. But when there are no feelings, Jasper, there can be no compassion either—for other people or even for yourself. You end up treating other people as you have been treated.”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“You say I cannot accept you as you are, but it’s you who cannot accept yourself, who thinks he must hide himself from me.”
― Bride by Mistake, Anne Gracie
“There was too much mutual awareness of the barriers that divided them. And too much reluctance to admit that they existed. And no willingness at all to bring them into the open to discuss them. She was terrified to confront the barriers. And so she remained locked up inside her mind with the unwilling and terrifying suspicions.”
― Tangled, Mary Balogh
“Too afraid to give anything for fear it will open us to hurt, to betrayal. We will protect ourselves to a bitter end. And it will be bitter, James. Because we both know that the path we are on will guarantee we end up alone.”
― The Daring Duke, Jess Michaels
“It was because she could not yet give herself completely to him. There were secrets, barriers of her own making. Secrets that must be told, barriers that must be torn down. And then . . . But there was no knowing what lay beyond that point.”
― Heartless, Mary Balogh
“They have a problem, and doubtless it has been compounded by foolishness and all the misunderstandings and stubbornness that come so easily when one lives close to someone else. You taught me very early in our marriage how to combat those occasions. You have always made me talk to you, and you have always talked to me.“
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
“No love can flourish and grow without honesty.”
― My Once and Future Duke, Caroline Linden
“Tell her everything,” he said. “Your sense of guilt will linger. It will always be part of you. But sharing it, allowing people to love you anyway, will do you the world of good. Secrets need an outlet if they are not to fester and become an unbearable burden.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“How could they ever grow close again if they did not share everything that was themselves?“
― One Night for Love, Mary Balogh
“...until everyone is willing to talk about it, nothing will ever be healed.“
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“...he needed to talk about the past, to exorcise some of the demons she was sure lurked there.“
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
“Pain, even pain from long ago, could heal. But repressing it, refusing to talk about it even with one’s spouse, would not do that.“
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
“...the importance of openness, of talking to the people he loved, even when habit urged him to keep everything locked up inside himself.“
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“...it was in everyone’s best interest that the truth be told openly at last, that nothing good ever came from secrecy and subterfuge.“
― At Last Comes Love, Mary Balogh
“Bare your soul.”
― Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage, Jennifer Ashley
“The peace he knew in her presence increased tenfold now that he had confided in her. He had never realized how much the secret itself created an isolation even when he accepted the company of others.”
― The Sins of Lord Easterbrook, Madeline Hunter
“speaking of the unspeakable has released something.”
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
”She loved him because of his imperfections, not in spite of them. One day she would make him see himself the way she did.”
― Duke of Debauchery, Scott, Scarlett
“It is perhaps better for all of us to risk being loved—or not—for who we really are.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“You really should learn to laugh at yourself a little, sir. And if you find people shunning you, you know, it is only because you have such a ferocious and morose manner. It is not because of your appearance.”
― Web of Love, Mary Balogh
“I have been guilty of a terrible self―absorption in my recent life, always seeing events in terms of me, not others. The truth is that I am so insignificant that even matters that touch on me are actually about other, more important things.”
― Secrets of Surrender, Madeline Hunter
“...self―deception was also self―destructive. She would not deceive herself any more or hide behind any mask in an attempt to shield herself from the reality of her life.”
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“My life seems to have been one string of self―delusions.“
― Web of Love, Mary Balogh
“We lie in order to persuade the world and ourselves that we are something we are not ― usually something far better and more flattering than what we really are.”
― At Last Comes Love, Mary Balogh
“Self―knowledge is far more slowly learned than any of one’s other lessons. Indeed, some people never come close to learning it, and perhaps none of us fully succeeds.”
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps she must step out into the world again and learn again how to live, how to love, how to enjoy, and how to suffer.“
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“...ready and eager to meet life and enjoy it instead of protecting herself from it behind the mask.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“Better to live and hurt than not to live at all.“
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“No barriers,” he said. “No masks or disguises. No fears.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
On Courage and Facing the Unknown
“Life seldom rewards the faint of heart.”
― The Duchess in His Bed, Lorraine Heath
“...good to step out into the unknown on occasion. How else can we grow and acquire knowledge and experience and wisdom? And the unknown is not always or even often unsafe.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“...we all yearn to expand our… our souls into something… beyond,”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“...the only thing we can confidently expect of life is the unexpected.“
― Once Upon a Dream, Mary Balogh
“Fear must be challenged, I have found. It is a powerful beast if it is allowed the mastery.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“When something that needs to be done is impossible to do,” Estelle said, “I have always found that the only possible course of action is to do it anyway.”
― Someone Perfect, Mary Balogh
“...some things didn’t change unless you made them happen.”
― The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
“...heard a military man say once that it didn’t matter what decision you made, the important thing was to make the decision, and then throw everything you had into making it work.”
― Marry in Secret, Anne Gracie
“Old soldier’s trick. Don’t look forward, don’t look back. Just live.”
― To Catch a Bride, Anne Gracie
“...when one had taken that first determined step out into the rest of one’s life, one had to keep on striding forward.”
― Someone to Hold, Mary Balogh
“The only way to cope, when your life was turned upside down, was to put one step in front of the other and do whatever came next.”
― The Accidental Wedding, Anne Gracie
“One cannot always run and hide from life,” he said. “It is best never even to try, but simply to face what must be faced.”
― Slightly Married, Mary Balogh
“There was no hiding from suffering, no matter how hard one tried to cultivate a tranquil life in which the highs and lows of emotion were leveled off.“
― Simply Unforgettable, Mary Balogh
“Life was made up of choices, all of which, even the smallest, made all the difference to the rest of one's life.“
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“How often the most momentous decisions of one’s life have to be made in a moment, she was to think afterward. With no prior warning. With no more than a few seconds of time in which to weigh one’s answer.“
― Heartless, Mary Balogh
“Decisions that we make in the blink of an eye, often both unexpected and impulsive, can affect the whole of the rest of our lives in a drastic, irreversible way.”
― Only Enchanting, Mary Balogh
“Strange how life could alter so greatly with one decision, one spin of a coin.“
― The Untamed Mackenzie, Jennifer Ashley
“Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“...my life is in my own hands, that I cannot blame other people for anything that might go wrong with it.”
― The Secret Pearl, Mary Balogh
“...at any moment in his life—child, boy, or adult—the choice of how to think, speak, and behave had been his.“
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“we can never look ahead to see the consequences of the decisions we make.” And never were truer words spoken, Marcel thought. “We can only make them with the best intentions in mind and with love in our hearts.”
― Someone to Care, Mary Balogh
“...that is what life is all about―a journey and the courage and energy always to take the next step and the next without judgment about what was right and what was wrong.”
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
“...do you live your life in fear, or do you take it like an orange and wring every last sweet drop from it? That is your choice.”
― To Catch a Bride, Anne Gracie
“...it’s best to face something head on, smash it, and move on with your life. Lingering and wondering, waiting and worrying . . . that kills you.”
― The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie, Jennifer Ashley
“The only way to conquer fear was to face it.”
― A Mackenzie Yuletide, Jennifer Ashley
”...if we can only face our worst fears and move forward into them and through them instead of cowering or turning tail and running as far from them as we can, then we will never have to fear anything ever again.”
― Only a Promise, Mary Balogh
”All people, he thought with a sigh as he left the room, had their own demons to be fought—or not fought. Perhaps that was what life was all about. Perhaps life was a test to see how well we deal with our own particular demons, and how much sympathy we show others as they tread their own particular path through life.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
”The demons plaguing you are chimeras.”
― What a Duke Dares, Anna Campbell
“If you was never frightened, sir, you would never find out what you was made of and what you was capable of doing. You would never become a better man than what you started out being.”
― Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh
“Then you are greatly to be pitied,” she said. “Not because you have lost a leg, and not because your face has been disfigured. Not because your life must change beyond recognition. But because you do not have the character to cope with those changes. Because you have allowed yourself to crumble beneath adversity.”
― Web of Love, Mary Balogh
“It is quite fascinating to observe how differently various people are affected by their infirmities,”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“Prolonged misery is often at least partially self―inflicted.”
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
“Like your scars with you, it will always be with me and it will always affect my life. But I will not let it destroy me.”
― The Secret Pearl, Mary Balogh
“When had he grown so wise, so understanding, so gentle? After he had suffered? Was that what suffering was all about? Was that what it did for a person?“
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“Never accept inferior treatment, and do not look down on your background for the things that cannot be changed, and for which you cannot be blamed. What is important is what you have done with your life, and the skills you have learned, and most of all your heart.”
― His Captive Lady, Anne Gracie
“Some people relished being mean spirited and unkind, and ignoring them was the most effective ammunition against such miscreants.”
― Prince of Persuasion, Scarlett Scott
“The world would never be rid of unkind people who compensated for their own insecurities by dragging down other happier, more successful people to their own level through their gossip. They were to be heartily ignored.”
― Someone to Remember, Mary Balogh
“Chin up and face forward.“
― An Earl Like You, Caroline Linden
“...whenever I showed signs of slouching along the street, hoping not to be noticed, that I straighten my shoulders and hold my chin high.“
― Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh
“She was not going to be a coward anymore. She would not hide. She would not let anyone make her ashamed of something she could not help.“
― The Perfect Stranger, Anne Gracie
“She could not tell herself that she would do it tomorrow or next week or next month. If she did not assert herself from the start, she never would.“
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“We can always change, grow, evolve into a far better version of ourselves. It is surely what life is for.”
― Only a Kiss, Mary Balogh
“Sometimes one had to make a determined effort if one was not to drift on in life unchanging. Change had come to her life, and she had the chance to change with it—or not.”
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
”Whatever you run from is inside you.”
― The Sins of Lord Easterbrook, Madeline Hunter
”What he would be running from was deep inside himself. He must confront it if there was to be a future.”
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
”The trouble with running away is that you must always take yourself with you.”
― Only a Promise, Mary Balogh
”If she ran now, perhaps she would find herself running all her life.”
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
”...look into the darkest corners of my life and to bring light there.”
― Slightly Tempted, Mary Balogh
”...learning to embrace that black emptiness, and I discovered that actually it was an infinity of light and possibility. I learned that my real self is inner and infinite and indestructible and quite independent of circumstances or labels.”
― Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh
”...alone deep within herself. It could be frightening. Or it could lead one to make a friend of the aloneness and to be stronger and even happier as a result.”
― Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh
“...sometimes pain had to be acknowledged and even touched so that one could move into it and through it and past it.”
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
“True healing was a slow business, perhaps a lifelong one.”
― Only a Promise, Mary Balogh
“...pull out the bad things after a bit and give them a good seeing to. Expose them to sunshine. Imagine if they happened to someone else. I promise it will look different. Then, mebbe you can let it go, and forgive yourself—yes…”
― Bride by Mistake, Anne Gracie
”He was reaching for happiness, or if happiness proved impossible, then at least for self―respect. He would no longer avoid the darker corners of his life.”
― Simply Magic, Mary Balogh
”Failure must be taken in one’s stride just as success must be. If one kept a cool, sensible head and learned from one’s mistakes, the successes would ultimately outweigh the failures…”
― Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh
“Life was a continuous series of tests, all or some or none of which one might pass or fail and learn from or not.“
― Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh
“When we refuse to learn, we often end up stunting our growth and never becoming the person we have the potential to be. But we all get to decide that for ourselves.”
― Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh
”But I am glad you are not some sort of superhuman pillar of strength. I would not be able to prevail against it. I am too weak, too fragile. In each other’s weaknesses, perhaps we can both find strength.”
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“Sometimes I think that this new life will turn out happily for all of us if we just have the courage to grasp what it offers.”
― First Comes Marriage, Mary Balogh
“My happiness has to come from within myself or it is too fragile a thing to be of any use to me and too much of a burden to benefit any of my loved ones.”
― First Comes Marriage, Mary Balogh
“Could he make her happy? No, of course he could not. It was impossible to make someone else happy. Happiness had to come from within.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“How foolish a notion independence is,” she said. “There is no such thing, is there? None of us is ever independent of others. We all need one another.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“Other people have to carry their own burdens for themselves. Sometimes you have to allow other people to suffer, Dom, even if they are people you love. Sometimes you can make the situation worse by trying to intervene.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps a smooth road does not do it. Perhaps we should wish this rough road on Stephen.”
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
“love can be an abomination when it insists upon wrapping the loved one in cotton wool, when it will not trust the strength of the one it loves.”
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“...pain was not confined to her alone, that other people suffered, that suffering could either isolate the sufferer or lead her out of the prison of her aloneness into a shared suffering and a shared courage, and an empathy that reached to the ends of the world.”
― Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh
“It was very easy sometimes to believe one was the only person who had ever suffered troubles, Wren thought, especially when one totally isolated oneself.”
― Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh
“It was always a mistake to believe that one had been singled out for unusual suffering.”
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
”The human spirit, she had discovered with some surprise, was capable of carrying one unbroken through even the worst of tribulations.”
― A Precious Jewel, Mary Balogh
”There are far worse afflictions than loneliness.” “Are there?” In the faint light she could see that his face was turned toward her. “The worst thing about loneliness,” she said, “is that it brings one face―to―face with oneself. That can also be the best thing about it, depending upon one's character. If one is strong, self―knowledge can be the best knowledge one can ever acquire.”
― No Man's Mistress, Mary Balogh
“We all suffer, Colin,” she said. “It is the human condition. No one escapes, even those who may appear to others to live charmed lives. But we all have the choice of whether to be defined by the negatives in our lives or to make of our present and future and our very selves what we want them to be.”
― Someone to Trust, Mary Balogh
“She was terrified. So what was she going to do about that? Hide in a corner somewhere where it was safe? Or pretend that she was not afraid at all? She was about to discover who she was, she realized, and what she was made of.“
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“You have, perhaps, rested upon a plateau overlong. Moving off it can be a frightening thing. It can also be an exciting challenge.”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps there is no easy road through life. We must each walk our own and make the best of it.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“If pain was the ultimate cost of freedom and independence and being a person, then so be it.“
― Someone to Cherish, Mary Balogh
“But miracles did not always come in a single flash of time. Sometimes they came with every step forward one took when every instinct urged two steps back...”
― Someone to Wed, Mary Balogh
“Everything matters. Everything you do touches someone in some way...”
― The Duke’s Perfect Wife, Jennifer Ashley
“We do not know what inner resources we have until they are called upon.”
― Web of Love, Mary Balogh
On Fate and Hope
“Sometimes when life puts us on a path we don’t necessarily want to travel, we discover it was a journey we needed to take in order to secure happiness.”
― Beauty Tempts the Beast, Lorraine Heath
“...some unseen force that drew each person toward the lesson that needed to be learned, the life that needed to be lived, the fulfillment that needed to be achieved. And perhaps ultimate happiness. The disasters of life in retrospect were often its greatest blessings.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“I’ll never ever say that I do not believe in fate,” he said, “or in a definite path that our lives take in order to lead us to fulfillment if only we will take it without wavering.”
― Slightly Sinful, Balogh Mary
“I do believe in fate, Anne―not a blind fate that gives one no freedom of choice, but a fate that sets down a pattern for each of our lives and gives us choices, numerous choices, by which to find that pattern and be happy.”
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
”Some events, some moments, were dropped deliberately into one’s life, he believed, by an unseen hand. But that hand had no power to dictate one’s response. It was up to the individual concerned to make something out of those events and moments. Or not.”
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
“And I think that everything that happens in life happens for a purpose. We become stronger people if we are not destroyed by the troubles of life.”
― The Secret Pearl, Mary Balogh
“Everyone had his own path to follow in life. And they all—the negative forces in his life, and the positive too—had had a hand in directing him to his own path.”
― Someone to Love, Mary Balogh
“But I do not believe we are blown about helplessly by a fate over which we have no control. There would be no point in free will if that were so. We all have the power to decide, to say yes or no, to do something or not to do it, to go in this direction or that.”
― Simply Unforgettable, Balogh, Mary
“Everything works out,” she said. “If one faithfully follows the pattern of the dance, it all works out.”
― Someone to Care, Mary Balogh
”Trust yourself. Trust the future. For though we cannot control it or have any real idea of what lies ahead, we are not entirely helpless.”
― Someone to Cherish, Mary Balogh
“Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.”
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
“There always is something beyond the darkness.”
― At Last Comes Love, Mary Balogh
“There is always hope even in the darkest moments of despair when we can come dangerously close to losing it.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“Since all happiness had been taken from her, she could have concentrated on giving happiness to other people.”
― The Secret Pearl, Mary Balogh
“...given up on resenting or resisting the truths of her life. If you could not change things, if you could not win, rebelling only led to more unhappiness.”
― The Rules of Seduction, Madeline Hunter
“...you will harm only yourself if you remain closed against all the possible goodness the world and life have to offer you.”
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
“...perhaps sometimes life offered second chances even when for ten years one had done little, if anything, to deserve them.”
― Heartless, Mary Balogh
“I believe that life is very generous with us once we have shown the will to take a positive course. It is very ready to keep on opening doors for us.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“We must, as we grow older and wiser, be able to allow all the … all the pain to seep out of our bones and our souls so that we can start again.”
― At Last Comes Love, Mary Balogh
“...we are reminded that we never can be in total control, that all life asks of us is to do our best to cope with what is handed to us.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“...the sea is a reminder of how little control we have over our lives no matter how carefully we try to plan and order them.“
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“When have you ever known life to follow any rules we may try to impose upon the chaos?“
― Only a Promise, Mary Balogh
“You must learn to let things happen.”
― The Duke’s Perfect Wife, Jennifer Ashley
“We are all dealt a hand of cards,” he said. “Some of the originals get discarded along the way and new ones get picked up, sometimes not the ones we hoped for. That does not matter. It is how we play them that matters.” “Even if it is a losing hand?” she asked him. “Perhaps it never needs to be,” he said. “For life is not really a card game, is it?”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“...life is as it is. We never know what twists and turns it will take or what hand we will be dealt. It is what we do with the unexpected and with that hand that shows our mettle.“
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
“Use your imagination. Reach out into the unknown and dream of how you can enlarge your experience and improve your mind and your soul and your world.”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“Sometimes our dreams lead us in the wrong direction and it would be foolish to continue pursuing them out of sheer stubbornness or the fear of disappointing others. There are other dreams waiting to be dreamed—the right dreams, the ones that will lead to contentment."
― Once Upon a Dream, Mary Balogh
“Dreams are very important, for they can give us many hours of pleasure, and they can help inspire us and point us in the direction we need to go in life."
― Someone to Love, Mary Balogh
“Dreams and hopes are what give us the strength and courage to endure the hard times."
― The Perfect Waltz, Anne Gracie
“...without fantasy, without hope that things could get better, life would be just a matter of grim endurance."
― The Perfect Stranger, Anne Gracie
“...why should dreams be impossible just because they were dreams?“
― Only Enchanting, Mary Balogh
“But that is what life is all about, he said. "It is about dreaming and making those dreams come true with effort and determination ― and love.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“If there were no illusions, there would bo no disillusionment. But then one would have no fond memories either, with which fortify oneself against the pain of the reality.”
― No Man's Mistress, Mary Balogh
“...there is always something to smile about and make life worth living.“
― Someone Perfect, Mary Balogh
“...how vast the world is and how full of possibilities for excitement and adventure.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“Life was too short to be moped away. There was always much over which to rejoice.“
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“...reality is studded with small, perfect moments, if you let yourself see them.”
― The Perfect Stranger, Anne Gracie
“I could never understand people not simply enjoying life when it is so short and the future so full of uncertainties.”
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
”Have you noticed how so much of our living is done in the future, Stephen, and so is not really living at all?”
― Seducing an Angel, Mary Balogh
“Tomorrow does not exist until it comes,” she said. “We need not think about it today.”
― First Comes Marriage, Mary Balogh
“But he was well aware that the future could never be relied upon to be an improvement upon the present. The future did not exist. Only the present did.“
― Someone to Love, Mary Balogh
“The future had a habit of being nothing like what one expected or planned for."
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“Never borrow trouble from the future and never lament the past unless there was something one could do to fix its effects.“
― Someone to Honor, Mary Balogh
“...one can never be certain of anything in the future. One can only … trust.“
― Someone to Cherish, Mary Balogh
“It’s very important to remember happy times; it makes you stronger inside when things are…less happy.“
― The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
“One needed to grasp the happy moments when one could and hug them to oneself with both arms. Her blessings were many indeed.“
― Someone to Care, Mary Balogh
“Nothing is permanently perfect. But there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more such moments.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“Sometimes, one yearns for something. For the ultimate in happiness. I yearn for it,and don't know where to look for it any longer. And I don't know if I would recognize it if I found it. And the longer I look, the more selfish I grow. For I think only of my own happiness. I think I have lost the ability to make someone else happy. If I ever had it. And I suppose we can never be happy unless we can also give happiness.”
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
“I am not sure we have the right to allow our own unhappiness to cause someone else’s.”
― Only a Kiss, Mary Balogh
“But unless we can open ourselves to receive as well as to give, we can never be truly happy.”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“Don’t dwell on the morbid and hellish thoughts. They’ll capture your mind if you do and will pull you down with them.”
― To Seduce a Sinner, Elizabeth Hoyt
“...we can rise above self―pity.“
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“...you are so much in the habit of feeling sorry for yourself that you have doomed yourself to a life of misery and martyrdom. You cannot have suffered that much in fewer than thirty years of living.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“But she had refused to lie there and wallow in any of them. She had known what she did. She had known what the consequences would be. She had no right now to nurse her suffering. She had no right to suffer.“
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
“He would live his life. He would live it to the full. He would make something of it and of himself. He would not give in to either depression or hopelessness.”
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“You cannot expect these things to drop into your lap if you do not reach out to embrace them.“
― A Summer to Remember, Mary Balogh
“...something in her soul knew that if she never reached for joy she would never find it and at the end of her life she would know that she had deliberately turned away from the most precious opportunities her life had offered as a gift.“
― Simply Unforgettable, Balogh, Mary
“The reaching out is everything, my love,” he said. “It is all you can do. It is all any of us can ever do.“
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.“
― The Perfect Kiss, Anne Gracie
“You are an optimist, then.” “There is nothing else to be,” he said, “if one’s human existence is to be bearable.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“Were some catastrophes not really catastrophic at all when one could look back and see the whole picture?“
― Someone to Cherish, Mary Balogh
“Our little affairs are insignificant?” “Far from it,” he said. “Pain is not insignificant. Neither is bewilderment or fear. Or conditions like poverty or homelessness. But somewhere—somewhere—there is peace. It is not even far off. It is somewhere deep inside us, in fact, ever present, just waiting for us to look inward to find it.”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“...we often spend a lifetime searching for what we already have.”
― Slightly Married, Mary Balogh
“But sometimes, it seemed to her, there was something, some sign, to nudge one along in a certain direction. What one chose to do with that nudge was up to that person.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“Do you believe that sometimes life points out a way for us to follow even if it does not force us into taking that particular path?”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“...when one asks a question from one’s deepest need and waits for an answer without straining too desperately to invent it, the answer comes, seemingly from nowhere.”
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
“Innocence ought not to be destroyed from any callous conviction that a realistic sort of cynicism is better.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“There is an eternal child in all of us,” he said, “thank goodness. A time to be silly and absurd and utterly irresponsible.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“You learn that being is more important than doing, that perhaps God is not to be found in the noisy affairs of men but in the silence of the heart.”
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
“...it was in idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace.”
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
“meaning was not to be grasped. It was a mystery to be trusted.”
― One Night for Love, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps the Creator in his wisdom knew exactly what he was doing...”
― Once Upon a Dream, Mary Balogh
“God is love. Nothing else. Just simply that.”
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
Balance of Opposites
“...life and pain go hand in hand,” she said. “One cannot live fully unless one faces pain at least occasionally. You must surely agree.”
― Someone to Love, Mary Balogh
”...disturbed by his succinct view of the world, for it was not so clear and concise, nor so dark and bleak as he would have it. “Life is night and day. It is summer and winter, warmth and ice, blossoming flowers and frozen ground. Life is spring and fall, new beginnings, and withered deaths. It is pain and pleasure. But you are wrong to think it ugly, Alessandro. The disparities of life are where its beauty hides.”
― Earl of Every Sin, Scarlett Scott
“Life is serious,” he said. “No, it is not.” She looked back at him. “Not always or even frequently. There is always something to marvel over. There is always joy to be found. There is always the possibility of laughter in almost any situation.”
― First Comes Marriage, Mary Balogh
“It is what we do with the pain, though, how we allow it to shape our character and actions and relationships that matters. But life is not unalloyed gloom. One must absolutely not allow pessimism or cynicism to send one into a deep depression. There is much joy too.”
― Only a Promise, Mary Balogh
”...nothing is static, that nothing is assured. All of us suffer the troubles of life sooner or later, no matter how carefully we have planned our lives.” “Ah, but life is not all troubles,” she said. ”There are delights too, pinnacle moments of extreme joy and longer spells of contentment..”
― Once Upon a Dream, Mary Balogh, Grace Burrowes
“Darkness was only a perception, she realized again, dark from one viewpoint but bright from another.”
― One Night for Love, Mary Balogh
“...the necessity of darkness in our lives as well as light—…”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“Could we ever be happy if we did not at least occasionally experience misery?”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“But how could you ever feel joy,” he asked her, “if you had not also known dreariness and suffering?”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“...we would not recognize or appreciate happiness if we did not also know unhappiness."
― Once Upon a Dream, Mary Balogh
”But pain was something that life inevitably brought with it. If there was no pain, there was no real living and therefore no possibility of happiness.”
― Simply Magic, Mary Balogh
”Perhaps they would not be so happy now if they had not had to go through that long, dark night of pain and brokenness. Disturbing thought.”
― Only a Kiss, Mary Balogh
“...sometimes heartache was needed in order to move forward.“
― Beyond Scandal and Desire, Lorraine Heath
”...the way life is. It is a continual balance of opposites. There are hatred and violence, for example, and there are kindness and gentleness.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“Realism does not exclude love or joy. It is made up of those elements.”
― First Comes Marriage, Mary Balogh
“Opposites are merely two sides of the same coin—one cannot exist without the other.”
― Slightly Tempted, Mary Balogh
“Life, he had learned, was a constant pull of opposites, which one needed to bring into balance if one was to live a sane and meaningful life.”
― Someone to Love, Mary Balogh
“Every positive had its corresponding negative, one of the more annoying laws of existence.“
― Only Enchanting, Mary Balogh
“The years of my convalescence were the worst of my life,” he said, “and also, strangely enough, the best. Life has a habit of being like that, giving and taking in equal measure, a balance of opposites.”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“One learned more in life from pain than from pleasure, her father had always said.”
― Dancing with Clara, Mary Balogh
“How strange life is. Good things can arise from bad.”
― Only a Kiss, Mary Balogh
“...there is always an indestructible beauty at the heart of darkness.”
― A Secret Affair, Mary Balogh
“The whole of life would be a tragedy if one did not understand that it is, in fact, indestructible,”
― Slightly Dangerous, Mary Balogh
On Love
“We are in the habit, I think, of believing that love is one of the weakest of human emotions. But it is not weak at all. Perhaps it is the force that runs through everything and binds everything.”
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
“Love is a mysterious thing, Miss Hall. It defies logic and reason, yet it is the most powerful force in the world.”
― The Arrangement, Mary Balogh
“We know that the real meaning of things lies deep down and that the real meaning of things is always beautiful because it is simply love.”
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
“...love is not entirely physical or mental or even emotional. It is larger than any of those things. It is the very essence of life itself, is it not?”
― Slightly Wicked, Mary Balogh
”...love— if he dared use that word—did not reside in any one person. His father had let him down. So had Con. But love had not. Love remained to him both as something other people gave him and, more important, as something he was capable of giving.”
― First Comes Marriage, Mary Balogh
“Love did not have to make sense. It did not have to be worthy. It did not have to be earned. It did not have to woo. It just simply was.”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps love does not have to be deserved...”
― Someone to Care, Mary Balogh
“...love is so much more. It is knowledge―knowing and being known."
― Slightly Tempted, Mary Balogh
“Love was what made life worth living. Not the pursuit of pleasure, but love. Love, which involved the full spectrum of human emotions.”
― Heartless, Mary Balogh
“It is a determination to care for the other person no matter what and to allow oneself to be cared for in return. It is a commitment to make the other happy and to be happy oneself. It is not possessive, but neither is it a victim.“
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
”Love does not have to be portioned out, Lizzie. It is the one thing that never diminishes when one gives it away. Indeed, it only grows.”
― Simply Perfect, Mary Balogh
“...for love can only give. As soon as it began to demand something in return, even if only a promise, then it was no longer love.”
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
“For love cannot take anything for itself. It can only give and leave itself wide open and defenseless against emptiness and pain and rejection.”
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“...that is the mystery of love, is it not? The more one gives, the more one has.”
― Only Beloved, Mary Balogh
“You have love all wrong, Gwendoline. It is not all give, give, give. It is taking as well. It is allowing the other one the pleasure and joy of giving.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“Perhaps she was just looking for love in the wrong places. In all the safe places. What if love was not safe at all?”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.”
― The Perfect Kiss, Anne Gracie
“Love is liking and companionship and respect and trust. Love does not dominate or try to possess. Love thrives only in a commitment to pure, mutual freedom.”
― Slightly Tempted, Mary Balogh
“What greater sign of his love could he have given than his willingness to set her free? It sounded like a paradox.“
― The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“Love means wanting the best for the beloved, whatever the cost. Love means sacrificing everything to achieve the beloved’s happiness.”
― What a Duke Dares, Anna Campbell
“...in order to feel true and lasting love, once―in―a―lifetime―if―one―were―lucky real love, one must be prepared to let oneself fall. To give oneself up utterly to the other person if need be.”
― To Desire a Devil, Elizabeth Hoyt
“I know it is something of a cliche to say that love makes all things possible, but I believe it does. It is not a magic wand that can be waved over life to make it all sweet and lovely and trouble free, but it can give the energy to fight the odds and win.”
― Simply Magic, Mary Balogh
“It is an attitude to life directly opposed, perhaps, to that attitude which sees life only as a series of duties to be performed or burdens to be borne.”
― Slightly Dangerous, Mary Balogh
“It is what life is all about. It is openness and trust and vulnerability.”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“Love takes a leap of faith. It’s an act of courage.”
― Marry in Scarlet, Anne Gracie
“Love is essentially a surrender.”
― To Seduce a Sinner, Elizabeth Hoyt
“Love was vulnerable, she had just told him. Ah, yes, it was. But it was not to be avoided for that reason.”
― Then Comes Seduction, Mary Balogh
“...one must lay oneself open to love. Let oneself be vulnerable.”
― To Seduce A Sinner, Elizabeth Hoyt
“Love was the most intensely exalting emotion life had to offer, and the most frightening.“
― Heartless, Mary Balogh
”...love and friendship are the only essential ingredients of a happy life.”
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
“We all need love, you know. It isn’t a weakness—it’s the most wonderful source of strength. And if people fall apart for a little while when it is taken from them, well, that is understandable.”
― The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
“Neither needed the other as any sort of crutch. They needed each other because they cared for each other, because the world was a more meaningful place when the other was close.”
― Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
“Love ought not to be like that, Samantha. One should love from a position of wholeness. One should have a firm and rich sense of self no matter what. For there is always pain—it cannot be avoided in this life, more’s the pity. But pain should not destroy the person who feels it. I should not have been destroyed.”
― The Escape, Mary Balogh
“There is something infinitely better than happily ever after. There is happiness. Happiness is a living, dynamic thing, Eve, and has to be worked on every moment for the rest of our lives.”
― Slightly Married, Mary Balogh
“...he had no illusions about happily―ever―after. He knew that happiness was something that had to be worked for as hard and as diligently...“
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“Oh, not happily―ever―after, Wulfric,” she said. “That is such a static thing. I don’t want happily―ever―after. I want happiness and life and quarreling and making up and adventure and—”
― Slightly Dangerous, Mary Balogh
“...foolishly he had thought of marriage as a happily―ever―after, as a destination rather than a new fork in the path through life.“
― Simply Love, Mary Balogh
“Happier than I have been my whole life. But it is not unalloyed happiness, Camille. Nothing is. This is human life in which there is no such thing as perfection.”
― Someone to Hold, Mary Balogh
“No one could tell you about love or romance or what would happen if you married and the romance dwindled away. You could only find out for yourself. Or not find out. You could face the challenge or you could turn away from it. You could be a hero or a coward. Was there any answer to anything in life? Life was a bit like walking a thin, swaying, fraying tightrope over a deep chasm with jagged rock and a few wild animals waiting at the bottom. It was that dangerous ― and that exciting.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
“Hearts do not die,” Catriona insisted. “We are all capable of healing and loving again.”
― Earl of Every Sin, Scarlett Scott
“...love had broken through all the barriers he had built so carefully and deliberately about his heart in ten years—almost eleven now. And one moment of time—the moment in which he had gazed at his daughter for the first time—had shattered the work of years.”
― Heartless, Mary Balogh
“...you must not give up on love even though it seems as if everyone you loved betrayed you.”
― First Comes Marriage, Mary Balogh
“Even when no one loves you, there is always someone to love, someone who needs to be loved. Always. You just have to look outside yourself.”
― The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
“It is never too late. There are always other people to whom you can give your love. Some of it might be given to yourself. It is time you came out into the light again...”
― The Temporary Wife / A Promise of Spring, Mary Balogh
“You were never unmarriageable,” she said in surprise. “People aren’t,” Charlotte said, “if they meet the right husband. Or wife. And if one doesn’t, I believe one can still be happy and useful.”
― The Deserted Heart, Mary Lancaster
”We have to love ourselves, do we not? Or we are incapable of loving anyone else.”
― Someone to Cherish, Mary Balogh
”If you do not love yourself, you cannot possibly love anyone else.”
― The Proposal, Mary Balogh
”You need to look deeper into your own heart. You need to learn to like yourself too.”
― Simply Magic, Mary Balogh
“I hated myself for years,” he said. “They were dark, lost years. Useless years. Don't do that to yourself. Life is too short as it is.”
― The Devil's Web, Mary Balogh
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