Anne Perry quotes:

I was born in London, England, in 1938, a few months before the war, and spent the first years of my life there, although I was evacuated a couple of times for short periods. My schooling was very interrupted, both by frequent moves and by ill health.

Americans sometimes say to me that they have no class system themselves. All human beings have class systems. It can be based on a different thing in a different country, but the thing about breeding is, you can't buy it. You can't buy class.

The great question, is there anything at all which is worth fighting such a war about, with the devastating loss it will bring? I believe yes, there are some freedoms which to sacrifice would be EVEN worse.

You start at the end, and then go back and write and go that way. Not everyone does, but I do. Some people just sit down at the page and start off. I start from what happened, including the why.

...perhaps great sins start as simple weakness, and the consistent placing of self before others.

Of course there will be disappointments and the way will not always be as I expected it. But if it seemed easy, then that would be the time to worry that I am on the wrong path.

She taught me,' said Ta-thea, 'that if you do not have couragem all other virtues may be lost, because you cannot keep even love if you are not prepared to fight for it, to endure the hurt it brings, and hold on, no matter the cost.

To take for granted one's blessings is a damage to the soul, and in time one will lose them, simply from lack of care. One should never tire of nourishing and treasuring all that is lovely.

I believe in an individual soul which travels through eternity. This life is far from all there is--in fact, it is a minute part, simply an antechamber, a deciding place where we choose the light from the dark, where we come to know what we truly value.

I am now working on the second WWI story and find the challenge marvelous.

Mystery writers' conventions are usually good, and this one has been excellent and extremely well prepared and thought out in advance. A lot of people have given their time and their skill, and a good deal of wit, and Anchorage has made us extraordinarily welcome.

What do I believe? It has been a long journey of discovery. There have been hesitations and errors along the way, and no doubt will be more, because I am still learning, both about myself and about life.

We believe world peace is inevitable.

... She knew in her heart that to be without optimism, that core of reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain, was a fatal flaw, the seed of death.

Your own gown is most delicately suitable, both to the occasion and to yourself,' to be translated: Your gown is insipid and entirely forgettable. If you wear it on every other occasion this entire season, no one will notice or care.

People lie to cover their mistakes, and then make even worse ones to cover their lies.

The truth can be very sharp. But it makes a cleaner wound than lies. It will not fester

We need our marks, our small illusions; few of us can bear to go naked into the world's gaze. And people will kill to keep their clothes.

The men who cannot laugh at themselves frighten me even more than those who laugh at everything.

Maybe right and wrong did not move, but understanding of them did. The wrenching pain of walking the same path, even for a short space, tore away the willingness to judge.

People only tell lies when the truth is disagreeable to them, or frightens them, or to cover sin.

Too many women waste their lives grieving because they do not have something other people tell them they should want. Whether you are happy or not depends to some degree upon outsward circumstances, but mostly it depends how you choose to look at thing syourself, whether you measure what you have or what you have not.

I think it's a terrible thing to write and not enjoy it. It's a sad thing. But of course a lot of people do work because they need to eat. And we all need to eat, but that's not the only reason to work. You couldn't have paid me not to write.

The mountains are so beautiful they make me ache inside because the moment I look away I know I shall need to see them again. And I cannot spend the rest of my life standing on the spot starting at shifting sunlight and mist and shadows across the sea.

Be aware that you can truly help people only by aiding them to become what they are, not what you are. I have heard you say 'If I were you, I would do this, or that.' 'I' am never 'you'--and my solutions may not be yours.

some kinds of beauty did not heal, but hollowed the pain even deeper.

A good library can provide the furniture of our minds and the threads from which we weave our dreams.

We all try to forget what hurts us, it is sometimes the only way we can continue.

I wonder how often in the past I may have missed the good in people because I pre-judged, based on the differences?

I did a complete rewrite of 650 pages in two weeks.