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
“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
“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
“Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.”
- Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
“Darkness was only a perception, she realized again, dark from one viewpoint but bright from another.”
- One Night for Love, Mary Balogh
“There always is something beyond the darkness.”
- At Last Comes Love, 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
“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
“...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 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
“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
“...there is always something to smile about and make life worth living.“
- Someone Perfect, 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
“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 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
“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
“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
Letting go of the past, 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
“...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
“...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
“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
“...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
“...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 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, Balogh, Mary
“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
“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
”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
”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
“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
“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
”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
“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
”Without trust there is . . . nothing.”
- Someone to Wed, 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
”Hatred, grudges were a deadly poison to the soul.”
- Slightly Tempted, 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
“...there were no absolute answers after all, not, at least, to many of the thornier problems of life.”
- The Gilded Web, Mary Balogh
“And at the end of the day forgive yourself.”
- Silent Melody, Mary Balogh
Courage, 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
“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
“...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
“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
“...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
“Prolonged misery is often at least partially self-inflicted.”
- Only Beloved, 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
“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
“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
“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
“...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
“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
“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
”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
”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
“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
“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
“...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
”...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
”...look into the darkest corners of my life and to bring light there.”
- Slightly Tempted, 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
“...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
“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
“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
“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
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
“...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 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“...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
“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
”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
“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
“Bare your soul.”
- Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage, Jennifer Ashley
“No love can flourish and grow without honesty.”
- My Once and Future Duke, Caroline Linden
“Hearts do not die,” Catriona insisted. “We are all capable of healing and loving again.”
- Earl of Every Sin, Scarlett Scott
“...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
”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
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
“...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
”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
”...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
“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
“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