58 Quotes by Alexandra Ripley

Should-haves solve nothing. It's the next thing to happen that needs thinking about.

How could a man know the truth of his own soul?

To anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. It's the only thing that lasts, that's worth working for, for fighting for...

But listen well. In Tir na nOg, because there is no sorrow, there is no joy. Do you hear the meaning of the seachain's song?

Something happens to people when they're masked. They become too free, uncivilized. They may do anything.

Charlestonians had a particularly vicious and cunning game, developed after the War. They treated outsiders with so much graciousness and consideration that their politeness became a weapon. 'Visitors end up feeling as if they're wearing shoes for the first time in their lives. It's said that only the strongest ever recover from the experience. The Chinese never developed a torture to match it, although they're a very subtle people.

And she understood. She would have done the same. She understood, too, why she'd been wrong to offer Ballyhara as a substitute for land he'd farmed all his life. It made all his work meaningless, and the work of his sons, his brothers, his father, his father's father.

Scarlett O'Hara did the most courageous thing she had ever been called on to do. She faced up to failure.

Johnny Reb' laughed. 'What's it to a soldier the right and the wrong of it all? He's there for the fighting, that's what he likes. Doesn't matter who you're fighting, long as he gives you a good fight.