The Queen's Fortune Quotes

“Mediocrity is never a desirable destination....At least, not when practice might transform mediocrity to competence, or even skill.' ~ Napoleon Bonapart”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“A lady need never apologize. ~ Joseph de Bonaparte (Brother of Napoleon)”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“The sea is forever, it existed long before I did. It shall outlast me. In a world where absolutely nothing is certain, at least that much is true.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune: A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire

“Fortune favors the bold. One doesn't win glory by hiding behind the lines.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune: A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire

“Frivolity is destructive, and complacency is corrosive”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“Ambition is never content, even at the summit of greatness.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“It (is) a precious gift, and rare, to hear birds warbling all year long. ~Desiree Clary Bernadottev(Queen Desideria)”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“carriage”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“Napoleon”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“Our newly crowned Emperor had asked his senate to raise him an army”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“had asked his senate to raise him an army”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“Nearly five hundred musicians packed the cathedral—every instrument imaginable”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“I went to the Pope myself,” she told me. “You know that he’s here”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“lavish train of red velvet and gold stitching”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“The foreign tyrants seek to destroy the Revolution by attacking my person. I will defend it”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“Josephine de Beauharnais”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“prison”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“First Consul intends to sell Louisiana to the Americans”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“Frenchmen”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“The only thing that is different is that we have two million fewer”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“All for the glory of France? This is not some promotion. This is exile gilded with laurels.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“I resented that his obstinacy had once more put him at odds with our nation’s leader.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“months”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“And now”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“found myself wrapped in fits of incredible loneliness.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“whirling chaos of troubled thoughts that had followed me from Rome back to Paris.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“I couldn’t help but feel that my own letters had been part of a different lifetime”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“his armies across Italy and near to the Austrian stronghold of the medieval city of Mantua”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“open her mouth to take small bites of her fish”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune

“it was clear to all of us at the table that afternoon that he worshipped Josephine.”
― Allison Pataki, The Queen's Fortune