Fatal Throne Quotes

“By changing a life, just one life, you -can- change the world. It is the only way anyone ever has.

[Anna of Cleves]”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“Oh, how I prefer the honest violence of men, who will bash in another man's skull and be done, to the thousand shallow cuts of women's malice.”
― Candace Fleming, Fatal Throne

“I am my head and my heart, all that I know, all that I love, everything I hope for. I am the blue waters of the Rhine, sparkling in the sun.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“Life deals the cards, but it is up to us how we play them.

[Maria of Jülich-Berg, mother of Anna of Cleves]”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“Up in the high palace, my mother is weeping.

She storms and rages. Tears at her hair.

She died thus, driven insane by war and the loss of her ancestral lands.
...
I embrace her. "Mother, why do you rage so?"

"The doings of men have driven me mad. Everyone told me I must accept what I cannot change. But I wished to change what I cannot accept, and that is where the trouble starts."
...
"Mother, do not cry over Wilhelm," I plead, taking her cold hands in mine. "He is not worth it."

"Ah, Anna," she says sorrowfully. "You think I'm crying because I had such a foolish son and everyone knew it. But I'm not. I'm crying because I had such a clever daughter and no one did."

[Anna of Cleves]”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“...One thing I have noticed, child, is that tyrants are the grandest romantics. They can burn a heretic alive once day, and compose a love sonnet the next.”
― Candace Fleming, Fatal Throne

“But we glared into each other's eyes like men who have ruined each other already, and who only wait to make the full disaster known”
― M.T. Anderson, Fatal Throne

“Do not wish for beauty, Alice. Wish for cleverness instead. Wish for a strong back and a strong will. They will do you more good than red lips and dimpels.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“The enemy perhaps may challenge my sex for that I am a woman - so may I likewise challenge them, for they are but men.”
― Candace Fleming, Fatal Throne

“Words hold such weight and consequence. I have not always been mindful of my tongue, and it has cost me. For if given the choice, people will believe the worst of you, not the best.”
― Candace Fleming, Fatal Throne

“I was a woman alone, yet never lonely. I was enough for myself. Nay, more than enough; I was a feast.

Had Henry known, I would surely have gone to the block.

To be happy without him was the highest of treasons.

[Anna of Cleves]”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“I could bear it [the shame] because I knew the truth, child," I say. "There was one of us in that marriage who was old, fat, and smelly, and it wasn't me."

"The King was cruel to speak thus," Alice says, but in a low voice. As if Henry, dead these past ten years, might somehow hear her.

"He was, yes," I say. "But I think mostly he was afraid."

Alice is sceptical. "Kings are afraid of nothing," she says.

"This King was afraid. I know it, for I'm the one who made him so. I made a mistake, child, a grave one."

"What was it?"

"I made my face a mirror when it should've been a mask, and what the King saw there terrified him. He hated me for it, and never, ever forgave me."

[Anna of Cleves]”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“years”
― Candace Fleming, Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

“Women help one another survive much in this world”
― Deborah Hopkinson, Fatal Throne

“Life deals you the cards. but it is up to us how we play them”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Fatal Throne

“when the truth is not as dramatic as the rumour, it gets altered.”
― Candace Fleming, Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All