The Pretender Quotes

“I once wanted to be a king who wrote history. Now I realise only kings write history,' Simnel says. 'Is anything true written anymore?”
― Jo Harkin, The Pretender

“... Lady FitzAlan lends him Margery Kempe's autobiography, which she says is the holiest book she's read save the Bible. He finds the book -- a bid for canonisation so obvious it should have been titled "If Saint Bridget Did It, So Shall I" -- amusing, but doesn't say so.”
― Jo Harkin, The Pretender

“Unfair power used against other men; presumption supported by chance; a glittering gold burden.”
― Jo Harkin, The Pretender: A Novel

“Henry repeals Richard’s act that declared Elizabeth of York and her siblings illegitimate, and orders every last copy of it destroyed. Struck from history, “forever out of remembrance.”
― Jo Harkin, The Pretender: A Novel

“Edward is astonied. How can a reader judge history? It’s like a reader judging God. History is what happened. Nothing can change it. But some dead historians have lied, or guessed, and now nobody knows what’s true. The fragility of the past horrifies him. He doesn’t say “fuck” here, not anymore. But sometimes he thinks it, privily. What. The. Fuck.”
― Jo Harkin, The Pretender: A Novel

“the town seems expanded to brasting point:”
― Jo Harkin, The Pretender: A Novel