Dark Tides Quotes
"It is not possible that he be dead and I not know it."
"These poor merchants, scraping a living from the river trade, heard all about the new king and his glorious court at Whitehall; but they gained nothing from his return."
"I am a justice of the peace in my shire," he said stiffly. "And a member of the House of Commons. I uphold the law."
"Once I had the gold from under the seal, I had no interest in them," she said. "Nor in you."
"I don’t have it in coin right now. We don’t keep that sort of money in the house, we don’t earn that sort of money in a month; but I will borrow and reimburse you by next week."
"I am free to do what I should have done that day. I am free to claim you for my wife, my beloved wife, and to name your child as my child, and to give you both the home you should have had, and the future you should have had."
"I am afraid nobody can help me," he said. "I am afraid nobody can. These are old troubles, and in my case, old sorrows."
"Rob was always ambitious," Alys conceded awkwardly. "But there’s no great house. Just here."
"But I can sell this," he admitted in English, and then tried her language again: "Trade. Good trade. You want wampum?"
"No Englishman had the knack of making [native fish traps] so no one could say, and many declared that native time was worthless anyway, and the traps were made from twigs that were worthless too."
"I don’t dare go into the forest. I’d be afraid of getting lost."
"You won’t get my business if you can’t be relied on."
"I came because I thought we would all be equal, simple men together starting a new life among other simple men without masters."
"The court is no place for a lady. Nobody attends court but for gambling and vice."
"Was London empty, after the great plague killed a family in every street?"
"I’ve made my own life here, as if I sieved it from the mud of the harbor and built it from sea wrack."
"I’m thirsty. It’s that hot in my attic you’d never think it."
"People do that? It is a crime of course. But our collection was all good."
"It was very sad and surely very tragic. But we can be happy now."
"I still think that His Lordship was not fit to judge you, and no man is fit to rule me."
"I like this land without kings or rulers but men who walk quietly in hidden ways."
"If I could do exactly what I want, I’d go and buy the silks and lace where they’re made, off the loom."
"I have always longed to live in the country again."
"But you English, you cannot leave anything alone."
"You can't keep me safe, you can't even keep yourselves safe."
"God forbid. None of the militia know how to march."
"Three shillings a pound, and it was a pound and a half weight."
"I think of you at full moon. God bless you all."
"In England, a wife can have her own business, earn her own money, declare herself independent of her husband—a feme sole—and her money and business are hers too."
"If you are a woman in Venice, your life is ended at the church door."
"We can't stand another loss. It would kill Grandma—especially as she sent you."
"I won't need it. I'm not going to die until I see my son again."
"I'd rather have a hard truth than a soft lie."
"Your life is ended at the church door. I was a nothing. Nothing. Until Roberto saw me and then I came into the light again."
"Don't take it back just because I can't breathe. I'm not going to be one of those tyrants who faint to make people obey them."
"It's not witchcraft and never was. It's my ma's gift."
"I'm not one of the People. I'm not used to such hard winters."
"You have to be dead to your wandering thoughts, never thinking of what has gone or what is coming next year, you have to forget the last step or the next, you have to be locked into here, now."
"So we are agreed? I do you this great favor, you tell no one of it, and you remember you are obliged to me."
"I am a milliner, serving Nobildonna da Ricci."
"They work, all day, all night, in absolute secret."
"You’d have to be a reckless man to break the law in this city."
"How can I object? I don’t have a beautiful warehouse where she can show her things."
"I have too much to do. I have to pack up my mistress’s goods and go home."
"A severed head? Of a bird? And this from the nation that beheaded a king?"
"I have been fortunate. More fortunate than I could have hoped."
"It seems I have to be her advisor, and her friend."
"Alas, he is as good as dead. His mother is right and wrong at the same time."
"The world will see us as loving sisters, and we will keep our desire hidden."
"Squanto is the name of a bad god: a devil, you would call him."
"I have to trust you. I have no one else to ask but you."
"We will never forget what you did to us—that afternoon in your bedroom."
"It’s too late, Ned. Remember the old king, Bloody Charles?"
"I live at Northside Manor. To keep James company after his loss."
"He’s been appointed doctor at the Lazzaretto Nuovo."
"No one to give you away when you are married?"
"I know nobody in England but my late husband’s family."
"I’d just like to know the island as we go past it."
"She stays in the house till we all go north."
"It’s not money. It’s valueless to anyone but my grandma."
"She’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll load her goods in plenty of time."
"They’re still in that cramped cold warehouse!"
"Anything anyone wants to say can be said here. There is no obstacle to me marrying this man. And in any case we are married now, and anyone who says different is a liar."
"This is a true marriage. It is in everyone’s best interest that it is not challenged."
"I thank God that you are alive. You know how much I was afraid of him. This was a man who murdered my first husband and had my second imprisoned! I was terrified of him, and I was all alone without protection. Of course I ran away."
"I was trying to make a new life, and to love those that you loved. I was comforting them and supporting them."
"You know how you comforted me. You held me, you dried my tears, you took me in your arms."
"The only way to be a free man is to walk, one step before another without stealing, without lying, without leaving anything more than footprints which were quickly blown away in the snow."