25 Quotes by Victoria Holt

When one grows older one learns that happiness—complete and unadulterated happiness—comes only in moments, and must be recognized and savored to the full, for even in the happiest life, the complete joy is not always present.

It has always astonished me how changes come into one's life. The gradual change becomes acceptable, but sudden shock, presenting itself without warning to shatter the existence so completely that nothing will ever be the same again, makes me uneasily aware of the perpetual uncertainties of life.

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.

You always look as though you think people aren't going to like you--that's your trouble.

Do you know, when I stepped through that gate I felt as though I had walked into a new world...something quite different from anything I had known before. I felt that something tremendously dramatic was happening and because it was all so quiet and in a way ordinary that made it rather sinister.

He could see I meant what I said, and was temporarily defeated. He walked past me and into the corridor; his eyes were angry and malevolent. I was horrified because I realized that he really believed I would have become his mistress that night.

Why should this happen to me when I planned and worked… and came so far?

Sometimes I sit at my window looking out on the towers of the Abbas and weep silently. No one must know how I suffered. No one must know how I failed. Sometimes I go and stand in the ring of stones and it seems to me that my fate is more wretched then theirs. They were turned to stone while they were dancing defiance. I wish I could have been.

The more I disliked myself the more wretched I grew. The difference now was that this mood did not manifest itself in sullen silence; I merely made use of my barbed tongue to wound them and spoil their pleasure.