Top 87 Jacqueline Winspear Quotes
#1. Most people don't realize that they feel something is wrong before they think something is wrong ...
Jacqueline Winspear
#3. In learning about the myths and legends of old, we learn something of ourselves. Stories, Maisie, are never just stories. They contain fundamental truths about the human condition.
Jacqueline Winspear
#5. If the way ahead is not clear, time is often the best editor of one's intentions.
Jacqueline Winspear
#6. Truth walks toward us on the paths of our questions ... as soon as you think you have the answer, you have closed the path and may miss vital new information. Wait awhile in the stillness, and do not rush to conclusions, no matter how uncomfortable the unknowing.
Jacqueline Winspear
#7. Maurice Blanche maintained that amid the tales, the smokescreens, and the deceptive mirrors of life's unsolved mysteries, truth resides, waiting for someone to enter its sanctum, then leave, without quite closing the door behind them. That is when truth may make its escape.
Jacqueline Winspear
#8. Thus he always wrote using a pencil with a long, sharp but soft lead, so he couldn't here his words as they formed on the page.
Jacqueline Winspear
#10. Those of us who have reached our more mature years know the value of a nap, Maisie, and we can indulge ourselves without the comfort of pillow or bed.
Jacqueline Winspear
#11. Thus a day that had seen so many tears ended in the midst of a rainbow.
Jacqueline Winspear
#12. Stay with the question. The more it troubles you, the more it has to teach you. In time, Maisie, you will find that the larger questions in life share such behavior.
Jacqueline Winspear
#13. But there are many men-and women-who do things in a time of war that they wouldn't dream of doing in peacetime, and all for the common good.
Jacqueline Winspear
#14. I love time with family and friends, but completely relish time on my own when I have no agenda to follow, no to-do's, just me and time alone.
Jacqueline Winspear
#15. I know this isn't easy for anyone - nothing worth doing is every easy" Brenda to Maisie Dobbs
Jacqueline Winspear
#17. David Corbett's The Art of Character offers a deep inquiry into the creation of character for the novice writer, with valuable nuggets of wisdom for the seasoned storyteller. If you are a writer, it should be on your desk.
Jacqueline Winspear
#19. The depression we find ourselves in here, and which is causing havoc in America, is allowing people to give weight to that which divides them, rather than to the shared experiences and elements of connection they see mirrored in their fellow man.
Jacqueline Winspear
#20. But you just know when someone's there, don't you? You can feel them in the house, as if--oh, I don't know, I'm an old woman rambling--but it's as if your heart knows that their heart is beating somewhere and everything's all right.
Jacqueline Winspear
#21. I often think it would be really interesting to take all of those who would wage war to the battlefield cemeteries, and say, explain yourself to the dead. Explain yourself to the dead!
Jacqueline Winspear
#22. Perhaps we shouldn't try to answer the questions now - let's just note them down. Maurice always said the power in a question is not in the answer, it's in the way the imagination gets busy when the question is at work.
Jacqueline Winspear
#23. What interests me is the experience of ordinary people. To tell you the truth, although I can repeat certain dates, statistics, and so on, what I am really curious about is what happens to ordinary men, women, and children in extraordinary times.
Jacqueline Winspear
#24. I'll tell you this. Leaving that which you love breaks your heart open. But you will find a jewel inside, and this precious jewel is the opening of your heart to all that is new and all that is different, and it will be the making of you-if you allow it to be.
Jacqueline Winspear
#25. She would not allow someone for whom she had so little regard to have a negative effect on her mood at the start of a new week. -Pardonable Lies
Jacqueline Winspear
#26. She thought the flat would be all the better for some photographs, not only to serve as reminders of those who were loved, or reflections of happy times spent in company, but to act as mirrors, where she might see the affection with which she was held by those dear to her.
Jacqueline Winspear
#27. A question has the most power before we rush to answer it, when it is still making us think, still testing us.
Jacqueline Winspear
#28. (a statement someone makes to Maisie regarding attitudes prior to WWII):
"...the corridors of power are littered with Fascist leanings; anything to save the upper classes through disenfranchisement of the common man while allowing the common man to think you're on his side.
Jacqueline Winspear
#29. But the thing is, in all my experience as an artist, I have found that there are people who want to destroy beauty. Is that because it's beyond them? Is it because beauty represents something they cannot have, or is not inside them?
Jacqueline Winspear
#30. Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live.
Jacqueline Winspear
#33. Maisie bit her lip. She had learned that sometimes it was best to let words die of their own accord, rather than fight them.
Jacqueline Winspear
#35. Only when we have a respect for time will we have learned something of the art of living.
Jacqueline Winspear
#36. Wolfgang von Goethe:A man can stand anything, except a succession of ordinary days.
Jacqueline Winspear
#37. [Maisie]: ... going out for luncheon with a gentleman is definitely not the same as going out to dine in the evening. [Billy]: You get more grub at dinner, for a start -
Jacqueline Winspear
#38. I believe it is to our detriment that age gives us a certain mistrust of those younger than ourselves, and we fail to see the strength within them to assume the burden of truth.
Jacqueline Winspear
#40. Fancy 'avin' to say you work for the Murder Squad, eh, Miss? Don't exactly warm folk to you, does it?
Jacqueline Winspear
#41. Use your training, Maisie, your heart, your intuition, and your love for your father to forge a new, even stronger, bond.
Jacqueline Winspear
#42. What is certain, is that war will not leave us as it found us. - WOMAN AT HOME, February 1915
Jacqueline Winspear
#43. Come, take what you will, be nourished and know that you can bear what might be on your horizon, the good and the ill." Now,
Jacqueline Winspear
#45. As friends they knew each other's history, knew the twists and turns that had brought them to this place in the world. And they understood each other's fears and frailties; nothing had to be explained. Now,
Jacqueline Winspear
#46. Never follow a story with a question, Maisie, not immediately. And remember to acknowledge the storyteller, for in some way even the messenger is affected by the story he brings.
Jacqueline Winspear
#47. There's all the others, but not the one. And having that one is special.
Jacqueline Winspear
#48. With the hindsight of the worldly experience she had since acquired, it was clear to Maisie that Dame Constance had suffered fools, if not gladly, then with gracious ease.
Jacqueline Winspear
#49. Truth walks towards us on the paths of our questions. [Dr. Maurice Blanche]
Jacqueline Winspear
#50. The extraordinary hides behind the camouflage of the ordinary. Assume nothing, Maisie.
Jacqueline Winspear
#51. Shame, isn't it? That we only like our heroes out in the street when they are looking their best and their uniforms are 'spit and polished,' and not when they're showing us the wounds they suffered on our behalf.
Jacqueline Winspear
#52. May I not sit in judgment. May I be open to hearing and accepting the truth of what I am told. May my decisions be for the good of all concerned. May my work bring peace . . . Charlotte
Jacqueline Winspear
#53. The feeling inside that she experienced when she saw the books was akin to the hunger she felt as food was put on the table at the end of the working day. And she knew that she needed this sustenance as surely as her body needed its fuel.
Jacqueline Winspear
#54. Also the clothing, people often ask why I talk about what characters are wearing. And that's really important to me, because you have to have a picture of how people moved in their clothes.
Jacqueline Winspear
#55. We talk about globalization today as if it's some great big new thing, that we've all just discovered. But there's really nothing new about it.
Jacqueline Winspear
#57. Now that's discrimination - when you look down your nose at the very men who fought to make sure you could still go to work in your tidy, warm office. That's the trouble with people - they cherish their comforts, but they don't want to know where they come from.
Jacqueline Winspear
#59. They say the face tells all there is to know about a life, but I personally believe much can be deduced from the hands. There are lines and scars, bumps and calluses; indeed, the hands are both the sketch and the final work of art.
Jacqueline Winspear
#60. But to some extent, the whole aspect of Fascism was a real hot potato. Because so many of the aristocracy were enamored of the tenets of not only fascism but also of Adolf Hitler himself. And you know, that was treading on a lot of toes.
Jacqueline Winspear
#61. Yes, it does make the load rather heavy if you carry tools for every eventuality.
Jacqueline Winspear
#62. My first ever job after college was as a flight attendant. I wanted to travel and could not afford it, so I decided to get myself a job where I could travel. I did it for two years and had great fun.
Jacqueline Winspear
#63. I'm a storyteller; that is what I do. And I'm particularly interested in history; and in history of a certain era. But what is interesting for me is how many, how many things you see repeated.
Jacqueline Winspear
#64. Allow grief room to air itself," Maurice had taught her."Be judicious in using the body to comfort another, for you may extinguish the freedom that the person feels to be able to share a sadness.
Jacqueline Winspear
#65. The vacuum left by the departing visitor seemed to echo along the hallway and into the walls. It was at those times, when her aloneness took on a darker hue, that she almost wished there would be no more guess, for then there would be no chasm of emptiness for her to negotiate when they were gone.
Jacqueline Winspear
#66. Though there had yet to be a victor in this great war that had begun almost three years ago, Maurice had written to her that they had, all of them, on all sides, lost their freedom. Freedom to think hopefully of the future.
Jacqueline Winspear
#67. It's really important in any historical fiction, I think, to anchor the story in its time. And you do that by weaving in those details, by, believe it or not, by the plumbing.
Jacqueline Winspear
#69. It is indeed a wondrous universal alchemy, is it not? When one's heartfelt intentions cause mountains to move.
Jacqueline Winspear
#70. Trouble is, your best ain't always the best for those who want a say in the matter.
Jacqueline Winspear
#72. There is nothing of which every man is so afraid, as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
Jacqueline Winspear
#73. Don't mind me askin', Miss - and I know it ain't none of my business, like - but why don't you take 'im up on the offer of a dinner? I mean, gettin' the odd dinner fer nuffin'ain't such a bad thing.
Jacqueline Winspear
#74. But for Maisie the case notes would not be filed away until those whole lives were touched by her investigation had reached a certain peace with her findings, with themselves, and with one another - as far as that might be possible.
Jacqueline Winspear
#75. Suffice it to say that we only answer questions when the person asking has a lot of silver on the epaulettes, or around the peak of his cap.
Jacqueline Winspear
#76. I think it's best if I reserve judgement on the perpetrator of this crime. If I jump to conclusions too soon, I might well blind myself to the right path when it's in front of me.
Jacqueline Winspear
#77. Even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you had your mother at your back, you'd be okay. Some deep-rooted part of you would know you were loved. That you deserved to be loved. - Jojo Moyes, One Plus One
Jacqueline Winspear
#78. she would have been disappointed if he had not demonstrated such idealism, for he was yet to reach twenty-one; youth without optimism, without a strong sense of the possible, would represent a very sad state of affairs.
Jacqueline Winspear
#79. What's interesting to me, is a moving someone through time; in a way, history is part of my landscape. And it fascinates me that history can be so easily reflected in what happens today.
Jacqueline Winspear
#80. There's only one thing left to do. St. Paul's on Old Year's Night. For Auld Lang Syne, my dears. For old time's sake.
Jacqueline Winspear
#81. I think that one of the things that we all ask ourselves, whoever we are, is: who stands to make a lot of money out of this [wars]? And, certainly, it comes back to people like armaments makers, and so on and so forth.
Jacqueline Winspear
#82. I've come to the conclusion that liking a person we are required to have dealings with is not of paramount importance. But respect is crucial, on both sides, as is tolerance, and a depth of understanding of those influences that sculpt a character.
Jacqueline Winspear
#83. ... truth has a certain buoyancy - it makes its way to the surface, in time.
Jacqueline Winspear
#84. Fear can be used in all sorts of ways to control people, and that's what he's done." They took a few
Jacqueline Winspear
#85. And it occurred to her that she was so used to turning over everything in her mind, as if each thought were an intricate shell found at the beach, that she had never truly known the value of simply accepting things as they were.
Jacqueline Winspear
#86. My favorite way to unwind is to go for a walk with my husband and the dog at the end of the working day, then we go to our local health club for a swim and to sit by the pool and read for a while.
Jacqueline Winspear
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