Elizabeth Peters > Quotes

“They will have difficulties to overcome,' I admitted. 'Including the differences in their religions. However, marriage is always a chancy business, Katherine. I have known individuals who appeared perfectly suited, by family background, religion, and nationality, who were thoroughly miserable.'
'So you believe in taking the chance?'
'Certainly. What is life without some risk?”
― Elizabeth Peters, Tomb of the Golden Bird

“The room was so neat and tidy it made me feel quite depressed...I do not allow myself to repine about what cannot be helped; but I remembered earlier Decembers, under the cloudless blue skies and brilliant sun of Egypt.

As I stood morosely contemplating the destruction of our cheerful domestic clutter, and recalling better days, I heard the sound of wheels on the gravel of the drive. The first guest had arrived. Gathering the robes of my martyrdom about me, I made ready to receive her.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Curse of the Pharaohs

“Stop," he ordered, in a low but compelling voice. "Do not take another step, or I fire! Dash it," he added vexedly, "does the monstrosity understand English? How absurd this is!"

"It understands the gesture, at least," I called, thrusting head and shoulders through the window. "Lucas, for pity's sake, seize it! Don't stand there deriding its linguistic inadequacies!”
― Elizabeth Peters, Crocodile on the Sandbank

“In the gloomy corridor of that sepulchre I had felt Emerson’s arms about me for the first time; along the rubble-strewn floor of the wadi we had raced by moonlight to save those we loved from a hideous death. Every foot of the way was familiar to me, and the spot was as fraught with romance as a garden of roses might be to one who had led a more boring life.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog

“...I felt obligated by friendship as well as duty to make certain they were comfortably housed. Since men seem to measure comfort by the degree of dirt and confusion that prevails, I deduced that they were very comfortable.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Hippopotamus Pool

“Emerson has what I believe is called a selective memory. He can recall minute details of particular excavations but is likely to forget where he left his hat.”
― Elizabeth Peters, A River in the Sky

“Have you caught cold?'
'It would appear so.'
'You could give it to Margaret,' Ramses suggested.
His uncle turned the tinted spectacles toward him and then, unexpectedly, bust into laughter. 'What a charming idea. Will you aid and abet me when I catch her in a close embrace and breathe heavily on her?”
― Elizabeth Peters, Tomb of the Golden Bird

“(for I have learned that noble causes have a deplorable effect on the morals of the persons who espouse them),”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Falcon at the Portal

“I had had my night of weeping...I had purged myself of useless emotions that terrible night, now every nerve every sinew, every thought was bent on a single purpose”
― Elizabeth Peters

“To see Ramses, at fourteen months, wrinkling his brows over a sentence like 'The theology of the Egyptians was a compound of fetishism, totem-ism and syncretism' was a sight as terrifying as it was comical. Even more terrifying was the occasional thoughtful nod the child would give.
...the room was dark except for one lamp, by whose light Emerson was reading. Ramses, in his crib, contemplated the ceiling with rapt attention. It made a pretty little family scene, until one heard what was being said. '...the anatomical details of the wounds, which included a large gash in the frontal bone, a broken malar bone and orbit, and a spear thrust which smashed off the mastoid process and struck the atlas vertebra, allow us to reconstruct the death scene of the king.' ... From the small figure in the cot came a reflective voice. 'It appeaws to me that he was muwduwed.'...' a domestic cwime.'...'One of the ladies of the hawem did it, I think.' I seized Emerson by the arm and pushed him toward the door, before he could pursue this interesting suggestion.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Curse of the Pharaohs

“God help the poor mummy who encounters you, Peabody. We ought to suply it with a pistol, to even the odds.”
― Elizabeth Peters

“...no eyes but mine will read these words. Why, then, the gentle Reader will ask, do I infer his or her existence by addressing her, or him? The answer should be obvious. Art cannot exist in a vacuum. The creative spirit must possess an audience. It is impossible for a writer to do herself justice if she is only talking to herself.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Mummy Case

“The fact that she had not yet exterminated her mother proved that she was incapable of violence.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Curse of the Pharaohs

“I have never been able to understand how men can feel affection for individuals who are intent on massacring them in a variety of unpleasant ways, but it is an undeniable fact that they can and do. Witness the immortal verse of Mr. Kipling: "So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'home in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man!" One can only accept this as another example of the peculiar emotional aberrations of the male sex.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Last Camel Died at Noon

“Emerson once remarked that if I should encounter a band of Dervishes, five minutes of my nagging would unquestionably inspire even the mildest of them to massacre me....”
― Elizabeth Peters

“I am not at all alarmed,” I said calmly. “Except for your friend’s health. He seems about to have a fit. Is he commonly subject to weakness of the brain?” The”
― Elizabeth Peters, Crocodile on the Sandbank

“It is a misconception that the innocent sleep well. The worse a man is, the more profound his slumber; for if he had a conscience, he would not be a villain. When”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Curse of the Pharaohs

“I myself have no objection to comfort so long as it does not interfere with more important activities.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Curse of the Pharaohs

“The room didn't look haunted or eerie now;it was only melancholy in it's faded grandeur.”
― Elizabeth Peters

“For a time Emerson politely endeavored to conceal his boredom - like most men, he is profoundly disinterested in all children except his own - ...”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Falcon at the Portal

“One thing led to another, and we were a trifle late going down for dinner.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Ape Who Guards the Balance

“After we had turned from the Muski into the narrower ways of the bazaar, the starlight was cut off by the houses looming high on either hand, and the farther we penetrated into the heart of the maze, the darker it became. The protruding balconies with their latticed wooden shutters jutted into the street, almost meeting overhead. Occasionally a lighted window spilled a golden glimmer onto the pathway, but most of the windows were dark. Parallel slits of light marked closed shutters. The darkness teemed with foul movement; rats glided behind heaps of refuse; lean, vicious stray dogs slunk into even narrower passageways as we approached. The rank stench of rotting fruit, human waste and infected air filled the tunnel-like street like a palpable liquid, clogging the nostrils and the lungs.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Mummy Case

“Before us, the moonlight lay upon the tumbled desolation of sand that had once been the brilliant capital of a pharaoh. For a moment I had a vision; I seemed to see the ruined walls rise up again, the stately villas in their green groves and gardens, the white walls of the temples, adorned with brilliantly painted reliefs, the flash of gold-tipped flagstaffs, with crimson pennants flying the breeze. The wide, tree-lined avenues were filled with a laughing throng of white-clad worshipers, going to the temple, and before them all raced the golden chariot of the king, drawn by matched pair of snow-white horses…. Gone. All gone, into the dust to which we must all descend when our hour comes. “Well?”
― Elizabeth Peters, Crocodile on the Sandbank

“Why is a man with a knife after your blood? Who sent him? I would like to write the fellow a letter of thanks!”
― Elizabeth Peters, A River in the Sky

“The sun is born again from the womb of night,” he said. “See how the light spreads, remaking the world.”
― Elizabeth Peters, Children of the Storm

“The roar of an angry crowd is one of the most terrifying sounds in the world.”
― Elizabeth Peters, A River in the Sky

“As I left I heard Ramses say, ‘May I remark, Papa, dat alt’ough your consideration for my sensitivities was quite unnecessary, I am not without a proper appreciation of de sentiment dat prompted it.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Mummy Case

“We could not have been more firmly dismissed. Emerson bowed in silence, and I felt a certain … well, perhaps embarrassment is the proper word. For the first time I could see the priest’s point of view. The strangers had moved into his town, told his people they were wrong, threatened his spiritual authority, and he had no recourse, for the strangers were protected by the government. A way of life centuries old was passing; and he was helpless to prevent it.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Mummy Case

“Other attempts ensued. I was visited by streams of attentive nieces and nephews assuring me of their devotion—which had been demonstrated, over the past years, by their absence.”
― Elizabeth Peters, Crocodile on the Sandbank

“he never comes to see us unless he wants something. Find out what it is, tell him “no,” and let us be off.”
― Elizabeth Peters, Deeds of the Disturber