Loretta Chase quotes:

Prying into others' private affairs is the preferred occupation of small minds.

Orphans? Would you really? Adopt children?There are advantages. If they turn out badly, we can blame their natural parents. We can also choose our own assortment of ages and genders. We can even get them ready-grown, if we wish.

Orphans? Would you really? Adopt children?""There are advantages. If they turn out badly, we can blame their natural parents. We can also choose our own assortment of ages and genders. We can even get them ready-grown, if we wish.

He was a man. Men always had lewd thoughts. It was perfectly natural and normal

Dain kept his gaze on his plate and concentrated on swallowing the morsel he'd just very nearly choked on. She was possessive... about him. The beautiful, mad creature - or blind and deaf creature, or whatever she was - coolly announced it as one might say, "Pass the salt cellar," without the smallest awareness that the earth had just tilted on its axis.

Lydia: What the devil do you mean by creeping up on me? You're suppose to be in a brothel.Vere: I lied. I can't believe you fell for the old going-to-a-brothel ruse. You didn't even look out the window to make sure I'd gone away.

I am not in love with you," she said. "It is an infatuation. I have heard of such derangements happening to elderly spinsters.

He pulled away the glove, and at the first glimpse of her fragile, white hand, all thoughts of negotiation fled. "I don't see how matters could become worse," he muttered. "I am already besotted with a needle-tongued, conceited, provoking ape leader of a lady." Her head jerked up. "Besotted? You're nothing like it. Vengeful is more like it. Spiteful.

I want you," she said. "I told you so," he said.

And so I beat him and beat him until he kissed me. And then I kept on beating him until he did it properly.

I can do one or the other. Lovemaking or thinking. But not both at the same time.

I love these pet names," she said, gazing soulfully up into his eyes, "Nitwit. Sap skull. Termagant. How they make my heart flutter!

I'm no good at being good.

Jessica swallowed. "I think you had better stick to English." "But Italian is so moving," Dain said. "To ho voluto dal primo che ti vedi." I've wanted you from the first moment I saw you. "Mi tormenti ancora." You've tormented me ever since.

He had relieved whores beyond counting of frocks, stays, chemises, garters, and stockings. He had never before in his life unbuttoned a gently bred maiden's glove. He'd committed salacious acts beyond number. He'd never before felt so depraved as he did now, as the last pearl came free and he drew the soft kid down, baring her wrist, and his dark fingers grazed the delicate skin he'd exposed.

Shall we proceed, and ought I do so with my knife drawn?You'd better keep it where it is for the moment, he saidOtherwise you might stab me to death accidentally. .If I stab you to death, she said, it will not be accidental.

Did you know you could kill a person with a hatpin?" she said."I did not," he said. "Do you speak from experience? Have you murdered anybody? Not that I'd dream of criticizing.

He cleared his throat, "Zoe, i think you said you love me." "I did say it. I do love you with all my heart." "I see." There was a long pause, then he said, "For how long has this been going on?" "I don't know," she said, "Sometimes i think it started a long, long time ago." "You might have mentioned it." "I didn't want to encourage it," she said, "I thought it was a bad idea.

I am not insane," he said. "A woman of your highly advanced intellect ought to be able to perceive that I am in love. With you. I wish you had told me. It was deuced embarrassing to find it out from your *brother*.

I beg your pardon for questioning your judgement," she said. "It is nothing to me, after all, if it proves faulty. I am not the one responsible for the Marquess of Atherton's heir and sole offspring. I am not the one who will be toppled from my pedestal if the world learns I have not only permitted but encouraged my nephew to associate with the most shocking persons. I am not the one who-" "I wish you were the one who had heard of the rule Silence is Golden," he said.

I don't know who had the training of you," he continued doggedly, "but your morals are shocking. You spent a night in my bed, remember, after a night in a bawdy house. You go about collecting street urchins and letting inebriated vagabonds kiss you, and then you get into brawls in pawnshops. You are probably past all redemption, but I'm going to reform you anyhow. If you behave yourself, perhaps I'll let you reform me on occasion, but I make no promises.

I should like to see you try.

If you try to find a replacement, you'll be sadly disappointed, I can't be replaced. I'm the only man in all the world who possesses the right combination of qualities for you.You can turn your Ballister stare upon me all you like, but you can't petrify me. You can knock me about to your heart's content without worrying about doing any damage. You can perpetrate any sort of outrage your wicked mind conceives and be sure I'll join in, with a will. You're a troublemaker, Lydia. A Ballister devil. Nothing less than a Mallory hellion would ever suit you." - Vere Mallory -

Let me explain something to you, he said. If you want to get something out of a man, dashing out his brains against a lamppost isn't the way to do it.

Life had a way of wrecking her careful plans, again and again. Roulette was more predictable than life. Small wonder she was so lucky at it.Life was not a wheel going round and round. It never, ever returned to the same place. It didn't stick to simple red and black and a certain array of numbers. It laughed at logic.Beneath its pretty overdress of man-imposed order, life was anarchy.

Life is not an opera. Scenes belong on the stage.

Masculine pride is an exceedingly precious and fragile thing

No its you," she said. How far away her voice sounded, as though it had traveled to London already, ahead of her. "Your ducal self assurance. Everything will give way to you. Even Satan's own storm." "You are definitely improving," he said. "Full mocking sentences.

Out of the darkness came Mr Carsington's deep voice, cool and calm. " Pray don't trouble yourselves, gentlemen. It is merely a villain come to cut our throats, rob our stores and ravish our women. No need for alarm. Mrs Pembroke has the matter in hand.

Parents must be treated with respect, whether one wants to strangle them or not.

She longed to throw something at him. A chair. Herself.

Silk and Shadows is something else. Like brilliant. It got under my skin as very, very few books have. It's still under my skin. Mikhal was haunting.

Thank you, Dain," she said. "I should like that very much. I've never seen a proper wrestling match before." "I daresay it will be a novel experience all round," he said, gravely eyeing her up and down. "I can't wait to see Sherburne's face when I arrive with my lady wife in tow." "There, you see?" she said, unoffended. "I told you there were other benefits to having a wife. I can come in very handy when you wish to shock your friends.

That is what I like about you, Mr. Dashwood," she said. "You are so decisive. It saves me the bother of thinking for myself." "That is what I like about you, Mrs. Dashwood," he said. "You are so sarcastic. It saves me the trouble of trying to be tactful and charming.

That's what brings in the customers: the combination of gossip and the intricate detail about the dresses, all related as drama. It has the same effect on women, I'm told, as looking at naked women has on men.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And the better the world liked seeing them fall.

They were perfectly suited. They would speak of books the livelong day and night and bore everyone else but themselves to distraction.

We're of one mind, Grenville and I, and the mind is hers, on account of my being a man and not having one.

We've been wed more than a month. Since it appears you mean to stay, I might as well give you leave to call me by my christian name. It is preferable, at any rate, to 'clodpole.

Why must women stay quietly? Why must we be little moons, each of us stuck in our little orbit, revolving around a planet that is some man? Why can't we be other planets? Why must we be moons?

Women don't have a sense of humor. They don't need one. The Almighty made them as a permanent joke on men. From which one may logically deduce tha the Almighty is a female.

You are well aware of your effect on women, and I'm sure it gratifies you no end to watch them sigh and salivate over your magnificent physique. I do not wish to spoil your fun, Dain, but I do ask you to consider my pride and refrain from embarrassing me in public." Women...sighing and salivating...over his magnificent physique. Maybe the brutal bedding had destroyed a part of her brain.

You needn't consult me about redecorating. I know no female can live two days in a house and leave anything as it was. I shall be much astonished if I can find my way about when I return.

You refuse to listen. Because, like every other man, you can keep only one idea in your head at a time-usully the wrong one.

I deserve passion," she said. "I deserve to be loved- in every way. I deserve a man who'll give his whole heart, not the part he isn't using at the moment..