"Many a gem lies hidden in darkness and oblivion."
~ Kate Quinn
Read all great Kate Quinn quotes below ...
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Kate Quinn stands as a literary tour de force in the realm of historical fiction, her novels breathing life into forgotten tales and unsung heroes from the annals of history. With a knack for blending meticulous research with riveting storytelling, Quinn has captivated readers around the world with her richly detailed narratives and compelling characters.
Born and raised in Southern California, Kate Quinn's passion for history was sparked at an early age by her love of storytelling and a fascination with the past. After earning degrees in classical voice and English literature, she embarked on a journey to bring history to life through the power of fiction.
Quinn burst onto the literary scene with her debut novel, "Mistress of Rome," a sweeping saga of love, betrayal, and political intrigue set in ancient Rome. The book garnered widespread acclaim for its vivid portrayal of life in the ancient world and its complex, multi-dimensional characters.
Following the success of "Mistress of Rome," Quinn continued to enchant readers with a series of equally captivating novels, including "The Alice Network" and "The Huntress." Each book showcases Quinn's talent for weaving together multiple narrative threads, spanning continents and centuries, to create immersive and emotionally resonant stories.
While "Mistress of Rome" remains a fan favorite, Kate Quinn is perhaps best known for her novel "The Alice Network," which follows the intertwined lives of two women – one a spy during World War I, and the other a socialite on a quest for redemption during World War II. The book earned critical acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller, solidifying Quinn's reputation as a master storyteller.
In addition to her literary accomplishments, Kate Quinn is also a dedicated advocate for historical accuracy and authenticity in fiction. Her meticulous attention to detail and exhaustive research are evident in her novels, which transport readers to bygone eras with stunning realism and vivid imagery.
Quinn's writing is characterized by its lush prose, richly drawn characters, and intricate plotting. She has a talent for immersing readers in the sights, sounds, and smells of historical settings, bringing the past to life with breathtaking detail and emotional resonance.
Readers are drawn to Kate Quinn's work for its immersive storytelling, meticulously researched historical detail, and compelling characters. Her novels offer a captivating blend of romance, adventure, and intrigue, inviting readers to embark on thrilling journeys through the corridors of history.
For those seeking a literary experience that is both educational and entertaining, Kate Quinn's books are a must-read. With their gripping narratives, vivid settings, and unforgettable characters, they offer a window into the past that is as enlightening as it is enchanting.
As for what the future holds, fans will be delighted to know that Kate Quinn has an upcoming book slated for release in the coming months. While details remain under wraps, anticipation is already building for another captivating tale of history, adventure, and romance from this talented author. As readers eagerly await the next chapter in Quinn's literary journey, one thing is certain – with her passion for storytelling and her talent for bringing history to life, the possibilities are endless.
Kate Quinn Best Quotes
“I love you. I love the way you rub the scar on the back of your hand when you're nervous. I love the way you make a sword into a living part of your body. I love the way you burn your eyes into me, as if you're seeing me fresh every time. I love the black streak in you that wants to kill the world, and the soft streak that is sorry afterward. I love the way you laugh, as if you're surprised that you can laugh at all. I love the way you kiss my breath away. I love the way you breathe and speak and smile. I love the way you take the air out of my lungs when you hold me. I love the way you make a dance out of death. I love the confusion I see in your eyes when you realize you are happy. I love every muscle and bone in your body, every twist and bend in your soul.” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “What did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done?” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Have you ever been - well, i mean, have you ever - really wanted someone ? Wanted them water in the desert - even when you knew all their faults, every single one - and it didnt matter ?” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “Hope was such a painful thing, far more painful than rage.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “There are two kinds of flowers when it comes to women,” Eve said. “The kind that sit safe in a beautiful vase, or the kind that survive in any conditions . . . even in evil. Lili was the latter. Which are you?” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Fleurs du mal,” Eve heard herself saying, and shivered. “What?” “Baudelaire. We are not flowers to be plucked and shielded, Captain. We are flowers who flourish in evil.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Poetry is passion--it should not be merely pretty; it should overwhelm and bruise.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Paulinus, everyone knows. Say the word, and I'll run the bitch over with my chariot” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “I am Athena. Before that I was Thea, singer and slave and lover of gladiators. Before that I was Leah, daughter of Benjamin and Rachael of Masada. I am as mortal as you, you common little man. And I fear no one!” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “The dead lie beyond any struggle, so we living must struggle for them. We must remember, because there are other wheels that turn besides the wheel of justice. Time is a wheel, vast and indifferent, and when time rolls on and men forget, we face the risk of circling back. We slouch yawning to a new horizon and find ourselves gazing at old hatreds seeded and watered by forgetfulness and flowering into new wars. New massacres. New monsters die Jägerin. Let this wheel stop. Let us not forget this time. Let us remember.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Some men ogle, some men look. The first makes us bristle, and the second makes us melt, and men are at an utter loss knowing the difference. But we do, and we know it at once.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Building a generation is building a wall—one good well-made brick at a time, one good well-made child at a time. Enough good bricks, you have a good wall. Enough good children, you have a generation that won’t start a world-enveloping war.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Snipers must make themselves calm in order to succeed, and that is why women are good at sharpshooting. Because there is not a woman alive who has not learned how to eat rage in order to appear calm.” ― Kate Quinn, The Diamond Eye “Lepida, has anyone ever told you that you're a cruel spiteful selfish slut?...You're vicious. You're unprincipled. You mistreat your slaves and abuse your daughter. And furthermore you're the worst, most neglectful, most criminal wife in Rome. I think we can go now.” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “But if men are the makers and breakers of empires, then women are the makers and breakers of men.” ― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City “If he doesn’t love me in a boiler suit, he’s not worth dressing up for in the first place.” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “So you're met Finn. He's a dash, isn't he? If I weren't older than dirt and ugly as sin, I'd climb that a French alp.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Steel blades such as you and I do not measure against the standards for ordinary women” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “He loves me hard” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “I will not tell you one single solitary fact about my work, my friends, or the woman I was arrested with. But I will tell you this, Rene Bordelon. You're a gullible fool. You're a terrible lover. And I hate Baudelaire.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “He doesn't need to tend her, because she hunts her own prey. He doesn't need to shield her, because she kills her own enemies. He doesn't need to look for her, because she's always at his side.” ― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City “What kind of moron wants to be a gladiator?” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “Moments this should have been glorious, and they never were. The monsters always looked so ordinary and pathetic, in the flesh.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “The idea made her sick and scared, but so what? Why did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done anyway?” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “I gripped her, drowning, and I loved her more than anything on this wide green earth.” ― Kate Quinn, Empress of the Seven Hills “...You know why none of us judge?' I bumped his shoulder with mine until he finally looked down at me. 'Because none of us have the goddamn right to look down our noses at anyone else's sins.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Boys got to do whatever they wanted, and girls got to sit around looking pretty.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Are not there little chapters in everybody’s life, Beth had read in Vanity Fair only that morning, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of history?” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “If part of that heart was always out of reach, that seemed entirely fair to Ian. You did not get a whole heart when you pinned yours to a splendid, battered, high-flying hawk a nightwhich. Nina’s soul would always, in some deep place, yearn to be flying under a bomber’s moon with her dark-eyed Moscow rose. 99%” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “...but nightmares were easier to bear when there were warm arms in the dark to burrow into.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Every night, tell yourself what you told me. How you’re a patriot, not a traitor. How you’re the hero of this story, not the villain.” Beth smiled. “Then remember that you got an innocent woman locked in a madhouse to save your own skin, and ask yourself: how goddamned heroic is that?” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “Life ought to be more a play; the entrances and exits would be a lot cleaner.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Is a Russian thing. Sit around, drink too much, talk about death.” She pushed her empty plate away. “It makes us cheerful” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Osla Kendall is lightly fictionalized from the real-life Osla Benning, a beautiful, effervescent, Canadian-born heiress and Hut 4 translator who was Prince Philip’s long-term wartime girlfriend” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “- what was the point of having an Emperor, if you couldn't cook up spicy rumors about him?” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “Making history was so much better than writing it.” ― Kate Quinn, Daughters of Rome “It is facile to condemn the French for giving in to the Nazis too easily when many French citizens would have still borne the horrendous scars of the first occupation, would have clearly remembered having to stand back while German sentries robbed them of everything but the nearly inedible ration bread because the only alternative was to be arrested, beaten, or shot. The French survived not one but two brutal occupations in a span of less than forty years, and deserve more credit for their flinty endurance than they receive.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Many a gem lies hidden in darkness and oblivion” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “How do I know what I'm up for if you won't tell me what this is about?' 'It's about a friend,' she said simply. 'A blond woman with a sunshine laugh and the courage to light the world on fire.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Vix watched you a lion watches a lioness.” “And how does a lion watch a lioness?” Sabina didn’t even try to pretend nonchalance this time. “He doesn’t need to tend her, because she hunts her own prey. He doesn’t need to shield her, because she kills her own enemies. He doesn’t need to look for her, because she’s always at his side.” ― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City “We loved each other by proxy, Mr. Graham. He loved me through a girl he saw once in Paris in 1918, and I loved him through his letters, but we hardly spent any time together. I don’t have any personal anecdotes about my husband. We didn’t have time to create any.” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “Nadie escucha la verdad cuando las mentiras son más interesantes.” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “No one should tell their mother more than one-third of anything they get up to.” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “[G]rief was beginning to be overlaid by the first layer of skin and time. Jordan supposed that layer would get thicker and thicker, and in a way she was sorry. Grief cut, but it also made you remember.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Or was it not change, but becoming what she already was?” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “I'd often wished I could work out people as easily as I did arithmetic: simply break them down to their common denominators and solve. Numbers didn't' lie; there was always an answer, and the answer was either right or it was wrong. Simple. But nothing in life was simple, and there was no answer to solve for.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “These have knelled your fall and ruin, but your ears were far away,’” Beth quoted one of Dilly’s irreverent verses. “‘English lassies rustling papers through the sodden Bletchley day .” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “Jordan considered. “He knows how to look. Really look, when a woman is talking.” “Ah.” Her stepmother sighed. “Some men ogle, some men look. The first makes us bristle, and the second makes us melt, and men are at an utter loss knowing the difference. But we do, and we know it at once.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “That doesn’t mean you were boring, ma p’tite. Just bored. Most women are bored, because being female is boring. We only get married because it’s something to do, and then we have children and find out babies are the only thing more boring than other women.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Maybe,” Nina had yawned. Who cares? It was war. Day was night. Life was death. Sorrow was joy. Who cared about anything but the now? (39%)” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Because we can keep on. Others, they try keeping on, they just...” she mimed an explosion. “It’s too much for them. They come to pieces. Not us. Hunters, they are different. We can’t stop. Not for bad sleep or parachute dreams or people who say we should want peace and babies instead. It’s a world full of mad wolves, and we hunt them til we die.” 61%” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Mab didn’t know what to make of such letters. How could a man who talked his vocabulary was as rationed as his meat be so verbose in print? Not just verbose, but funny, wry, moody, tender . . . yet she wasn’t sure she understood him any better. Nothing he wrote ever touched on himself, but an envelope still winged from London nearly every other day. What was she supposed to write back? That the new billet was very nice, that the new landlady was very nice, that the weather was very nice? She couldn’t say anything about her work and didn’t have her husband’s knack for spinning pages about daily trifles. Trying to carry on a conversation with Francis seemed destined to be one-sided—but whereas he was the silent one in person, by letter, she felt the mute.” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “But for all their fuss about give me your huddled masses, Yanks don’t really refugees,” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “reminded myself that you must do the thing you think you cannot do,” she said simply. “Always. And generally you find out you can do it, after all.” ― Kate Quinn, The Diamond Eye “But I'd far rather live without souls or morals than Parmesan.” ― Kate Quinn, The Serpent and the Pearl “The crowd's murmuring rose to a roar, and for the first time in a week the agony of worry for my son was drowned out as his father strode out onto the sand. Arius.” ― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome “Knowledge, to light the path for humankind,” I said at last. “And this”—patting my rifle—“to protect humankind when we lose that path.” ― Kate Quinn, The Diamond Eye “We’re standing in the ashes of a war no other—if we don’t try harder to see the shades of gray involved, we’ll find ourselves in the thick of a new one.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Empresses," Vix said in disgust. "They're always trouble, the tricky bitches. Emperors might forgive you if you cross them, but never empresses.” ― Kate Quinn, Empress of the Seven Hills “When you’re young and you’ve known nothing but peace, you assume there will always be time for everything.” ― Kate Quinn, The Diamond Eye “Maybe it is all rotten, but if the good ones leave, who's there to make it better after the war? I know why you have to leave, Ninochka. It's leave or nothing. But I can't give up my homeland and my oath for love. That's the kind of thing that makes men say little princesses have no place at the front.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “The habit of nagging, let me assure you, goes with a nurse no matter what she does.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “I am only saying that I will find you mad wolves to hunt," Ian told his wife, "and that I will never break your heart." If part of that heart was always out of reach, that seemed entirely fair to Ian. You did not get a whole heart when you pinned yours to a splendid, battered, high-flying hawk a Night Witch. Nina's soul would always in some deep place yearn to be soaring under a bomber's moon with her dark-eyed Moscow rose, and that was fine. Ian thought there was a chance, despite her prickles, that a bit of that remaining heart might thaw enough for him.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “I believe in revenge... I’ve lost faith in much over the years, but not that.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “What I mean is, it's not a matter of age. There are boys aged fifty, and men aged fifteen. It's all in what they do, not how old they are...A boy messes up with a lass, and he slinks off without fixing anything. A man makes a mistake, he fixes it. He apologizes.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Face a potato, temper a prison wardress.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Life is not a math problem, Charlotte.” If it was, I’d have been a lot better at it. I’d often wished I could work out people as easily as I did arithmetic: simply break them down to their common denominators and solve. Numbers didn’t lie; there was always an answer, and the answer was either right or it was wrong. Simple. But nothing in life was simple, and there was no answer here to solve for.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “The little men are still out here taking the bullets while the big men sit safe and dry. That doesn’t change no matter who’s in charge.” ― Kate Quinn, The Diamond Eye “Bloody hell, woman, the mouth on you. (43%)” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “She wanted to go home, and she had no idea where to find it.” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “He’d turn his own mother in to the Germans for a profit, not that he has a mother. The devil probably shit him out after a night’s drinking with Judas.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “A nightmare was a needle plunging through the net of human memory; it slipped past one strand and caught up another on its point, stitching up dark dreams out of the unliest recollections.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “So maybe falling for Yelena wasn’t hard to understand, after all. She was fine and fierce, keen and courageous, the best flier in the regiment. With a roll call of qualities that, Nina would have lost her head over Yelena whether she was woman, man, or plant. To Nina it was exactly that simple and not worthy of any further thought,” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “Facing a pistol-wielding murderer does tend to put parents further down the list of things to be intimidated by.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Clearly, women in active fighting zones unsettled their contemporaries, but they still left a legacy behind. Girls of the ’30s and ’40s joined the SOE to train as spies against the Nazis because they had been inspired by books and stories about women Louise de Bettignies—and they weren’t inspired by her feminine graces. They were inspired by her courage, her toughness, and her unflinching drive, just as I imagined Charlie being inspired by Eve’s. Such women were fleurs du mal indeed— with steel, with endurance, and with flair, they thrived in evil and inspired others in doing so.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Not wise, perhaps, to be rude to the Pope's favorite son, but my viper tongue still required a fool now and then on which to exercise its edges, and Juan Borgia served admirably in place of drunken innkeepers and tavern cheats.” ― Kate Quinn, The Serpent and the Pearl “It isn’t enough to believe in equality and peace and human rights—one must work at it.” ― Kate Quinn, The Diamond Eye “Oh, pfft. I manage. With any paper one sticks under their nose and plenty of self-possession, one can get through, Especially a woman. Sometimes I take an armload of parcels and bags and drop every single one as I try to find my identity cards, chatting all the while, and they wave me through out of sheer irritation.' Lili exhaled a long steam of smoke. 'To tell the truth, much of this special work we do is quite boring. I think that's why women are good as it. Our lives are already boring. We jump an Uncle Edward's offer because we can't stand the thought of working in a file room anymore, or teaching a class full of runny-nosed children their letters. Then we discover this job is deadly dull as well, but at least there's the enlivening thought that someone might put a Luger to the back of our necks. It's still better than shooting ourselves, which we know we're going to do if we have to type one more letter or pound one more Latin verb into a child's ivory skull.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Lethe is the river of forgetfulness that runs through the underworld, so the classics tell us, and there is nothing more potent than forgetfulness.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Big hat, no cattle.” ― Kate Quinn “Even when she was just a flutter inside me, I loved her. Because she is ours.” ― Kate Quinn, Lady of the Eternal City “Eve wondered how much it was possible to change in two weeks. Or was it not change, but becoming what she already was?” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Native of both countries, at home in neither.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “It was about as organized and efficient as a monkey shit fight in a zoo.” ― Kate Quinn, The Diamond Eye “[Ruth]'d had bad nightmares in the fall, something about a woman hiding in her closet at night to steal her away, and Jordan had fussed very unnecessarily. Nina had taken her razor, gone into the closet and banged around uttering some Baba Yaga screeches, nicked the pad of her finger so there would be blood on the razor, then walked out holding it up for Ruth's inspection, announcing, "Is dead now." Nightmares had been better ever since.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “I’m done loving sweet-souled long lashed idealists who dream of flight.... She would find some clear eyed hunter with a heart a diamond.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress “An oasis in the desert, surely, for a boy raised without a home. A boy who’d grown into an ambitious man . . . Osla knew Philip so well; of course he was ambitious. What man in his lonely, barebones position would turn down such a chance—status, wealth, power, allied to a loving family and a girl he thought he might very well be able to love?” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “She knew something else as well. If she put enough steps in line, one after the other, she would get there—to the ticket booth, to Bletchley, to the rest of her life—without crumbling into pieces. In the grand scheme of things, losing Philip wasn’t remotely important. Not in a world where there were invasions of Europe being planned, where millions around the globe were dying. It didn’t matter at all that she felt she was being torn apart inside by white-hot pincers.” ― Kate Quinn, The Rose Code “putting these things on paper meant you had to unpack your own disgrace in ugly black and white.” ― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network “Time is a wheel, vast and indifferent, and when time rolls on and men forget, we face the risk of circling back.” ― Kate Quinn, The Huntress