175+ Inspirational Nora Roberts Quotes [2024] American Author

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December 20th, 2021

Nora Roberts is an American author who has penned more than 220 romance novels in her lifetime.

Roberts was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. Nora's novels had spent a combined 860+ weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, and 175+ weeks in the No. 1 spot.

Nora Roberts won an extraordinary 21 of the RWA's RITA Awards, the highest honor given in the romance genre.

We've put together an incredible collection of Nora Roberts quotes to read.

Here they are:

175+ Inspirational Nora Roberts Quotes [2024] American Author

List of Inspiring Nora Roberts Quotes

“Moments came and went, she thought. It was love that bound them together into a life.” - Nora Roberts

“The man’s got more money than God, and he sends you a bag of coffee?” - Nora Roberts

“If you tell me I’m sensible in addition to normal and wise, I’m going to punch you in the stomach.” - Nora Roberts

“And yet, anything real, anything strong, was never easy. She’d been taught from an early age that the things that mattered most were the hardest to obtain.” - Nora Roberts

“If sex is dignified it’s not being done right.” - Nora Roberts

“Evil cannot and will not be vanquished by evil. Dark will only swallow dark and deepen. The good and the light are the keenest weapons.” - Nora Roberts

“She wants to learn how to handle a gun. Well, I want George Clooney naked in my bed, but I haven’t attempted kidnapping. Yet.” - Nora Roberts

“The simple and most complex answer is love.” - Nora Roberts

“Sometimes a wind comes up, blows you off course. You’re not ready for it, but if you’re lucky, you end up in a more interesting place than you’d planned.” - Nora Roberts

“Love is not enough. But, it is the rock on which all else stands.” - Nora Roberts

“Some things in life are out of your control. You can make it a party or a tragedy.” - Nora Roberts

“Life is full of circles.” - Nora Roberts

“I said, you’re the beat of my heart, the breath in my body, the light in my soul.” - Nora Roberts

“People and relationships never stop being a work in progress.” - Nora Roberts

“Love without trust? It’s not love at all.” - Nora Roberts

“Half full, half empty, what the hell difference does it make? If there’s something in the damn glass, drink it.” - Nora Roberts

“I wouldn’t waste a day, not an hour, not a moment. Take what you want and damn caution. Live, enjoy. Feed ravenously. Or the biggest regret you’ll have at the end of your life is wasted time.” - Nora Roberts

“If something isn’t special, then it’s ordinary.” - Nora Roberts

“Sometimes I just want to gobble you whole, eat you alive. You’re so gorgeous. You’re so beautiful.” - Nora Roberts

“We make destiny with every turn, every choice.” - Nora Roberts

“I know you love me, but I don’t know why. I look at you and I just can’t get why it’s me. Every time I get my balance, I lose it again. Because it shouldn’t be me, and I think it’d kill me if you ever figured that out.” - Nora Roberts

“I guess money can’t buy happiness if you shop in the wrong places.” - Nora Roberts

“What’s the point of playing if winning isn’t the goal?” - Nora Roberts

“It’s hard to resist a bad boy who’s a good man.” - Nora Roberts

“Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice.” - Nora Roberts

“Nothing worthwhile is ever without complications.” - Nora Roberts

“Nature will kill you without a minute’s thought, and in nastier ways than a crazy guy with a gun. It doesn’t make her any less beautiful.” - Nora Roberts

“I promised myself that no matter where I went, what I did, I’d never take anything for granted again.” - Nora Roberts

“If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.” - Nora Roberts

“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.” - Nora Roberts

“There’s no reward without work, no victory without effort, no battle won without risk.” - Nora Roberts

“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it.” - Nora Roberts

“If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.” - Nora Roberts

“A writer never finds the time to write. A writer makes it. If you don’t have the drive, the discipline, and the desire, then you can have all the talent in the world, and you aren’t going to finish a book.” - Nora Roberts

“You can fix anything but a blank page.” - Nora Roberts

“The most important thing in writing is to have written. I can always fix a bad page. I can’t fix a blank one.” - Nora Roberts

“Sex might satisfy, food might fuel, love might sustain, but without coffee, what is the point?” - Nora Roberts

“Things have a way of falling into place.” - Nora Roberts

“We’re all victims of what life deals out. It’s how we handle it that’s important.” - Nora Roberts

“Be yourself. Be true to that, to your heart. Patience. See what happens if you step back instead of bounding forward.” - Nora Roberts

“Two women can’t share a house comfortably, no matter how fond they might be of each other. It’s got to be one woman’s kitchen.” - Nora Roberts

“The man was useless as tits on a bull, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.” - Nora Roberts

“When the going gets tough, the tough eat ribs.” - Nora Roberts

“Holding onto something that’s gone only makes a sickness inside.” - Nora Roberts

“I generally write a first draft that’s pretty lean. Just get the story down.” - Nora Roberts

“You’re excuses are so lame they’re limping...” - Nora Roberts

“And still she felt more confident at the prospect of taking on the Russian Mafia than she did attending a backyard barbecue.” - Nora Roberts

“Winning can be addictive.” - Nora Roberts

“The man that put that hurt look in your eyes could be worth everything, or nothing at all.” - Nora Roberts

“Tell him I took the cat.” - Nora Roberts

“You can’t just hope for happy endings. You have to believe in them. Then do the work, take the risks.” - Nora Roberts

“You’re the love of my life. I don’t care how corny that sounds. You’re the start of it, and the end of it. And you’re the best of it.” - Nora Roberts

“Why would I kill someone I don’t know, when I know so many people who irritate me, and haven't killed any of them?” - Nora Roberts

“When something comes easy, you usually let it go the same way.” - Nora Roberts

“Once you considered failure you were one step farther away from success.” - Nora Roberts

“Couples take care of each other, Clare, that’s what makes them a couple. And couples tell each other when something happens that scares them.” - Nora Roberts

“Feeling too much is a hell of a lot better than feeling nothing.” - Nora Roberts

“I don’t think you can write – at least not well – if you don’t love stories, love the written word.” - Nora Roberts

“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won.” - Nora Roberts

“I hate patience. Slows everything down.” - Nora Roberts

“I think those who have impact and influence over us are often unaware.” - Nora Roberts

“It’s about us. It’s about trust.” - Nora Roberts

“He trailed off as he saw the books. Piles and stacks of them beside the sofa, another stack on the coffee table, a sea of them on her dining table. Jesus Christ, Dane, you need treatment.” - Nora Roberts

“Don’t give up on your own happy-ever.” - Nora Roberts

“I won’t consider getting horizontal with someone I can barely tolerate when we’re vertical.” - Nora Roberts

“Ireland is a land of poets and legends, of dreamers and rebels. All of these have music woven through and around them. Tunes for dancing or for weeping, for battle or for love.” - Nora Roberts

“You want safe? Find a nice puppy you can train to come heel. Love’s supposed to be scary. Because if there’s no fear, there’s no thrill.” - Nora Roberts

“Old friends are the bricks and mortar of your life.” - Nora Roberts

“Politics. It’s for idiots and bad actors.” - Nora Roberts

“Dreams were essential, creativity a must, but details, sweat, and a business plan made dreams a reality.” - Nora Roberts

“You didn’t hurt me, the situation did. And now that I know why I felt that way, it won’t hurt.” - Nora Roberts

“I don’t think you tell someone you love them because you expect something. I think you tell them because you have something to give.” - Nora Roberts

“People who say not to speak ill of the dead are hypocrites because you can take it to the bank they’re thinking ill.” - Nora Roberts

“I had the blood and fire rule when my boys were young. You know, unless it’s blood or fire, don’t bother me.” - Nora Roberts

“Why don’t you put your ego down for a while, Justin. It must be getting heavy.” - Nora Roberts

“A woman who can threaten your life before breakfast is the only sort of woman worth having.” - Nora Roberts

“No. No, I don’t believe you’d betray me with her. I don’t believe you’d cheat on me. But I’m afraid, and I’m sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret.” - Nora Roberts

“You can’t write well what you don’t read for pleasure. If it doesn’t entertain you, it’s not going to entertain anyone else.” - Nora Roberts

“Once she’d been a victim- helpless, used, and broken. Now, she was a warrior.” - Nora Roberts

“There are no dead ends, just detours.” - Nora Roberts

“So does that mean you’re going to fall in love with me again? What makes you think i ever stopped?” - Nora Roberts

“Everything I know, I learned from dogs.” - Nora Roberts

“Do you see that out there? The strange, unfamiliar light? It’s called the sun. Let’s go get us a little.” - Nora Roberts

“I’d rather lie bare-assed naked on the sidewalk and be trampled by tourists from South Dakota than be an accountant.” - Nora Roberts

“Life is like a mustache. It can be wonderful or terrible. But it always tickles.” - Nora Roberts

“A relationship isn’t something that has to be created in a day or perfected in a day. Part of the game is to keep working on it. It’s something that’ll always be just a little flawed.” - Nora Roberts

“Listen carefully. I’d crush you like a bug for causing my wife one single moment of pain. Believe it. Fear it.” - Nora Roberts

“Once love found you it clung, no matter how much you tried to shake it off.” - Nora Roberts

“Why is it you think you’ll live forever and why do you want to, I’d like to know, when you deny yourselves so many of the basic pleasures in life?” - Nora Roberts

“Change was as much about loss as gain, about giving something up even as you reached for something new or different. The world was opening up, not closing in.” - Nora Roberts

“Wouldn’t it be nice if everything balanced in the world? If right came out on top and wrong was punished. It sure would be simple.” - Nora Roberts

“Eve: Anyway, thanks for riding to the rescue. You need a white hat. Good guys wear white, right? Roarke: I look better in black.” - Nora Roberts

“Those big blue eyes were swimming, and he was afraid that if the first tear fell, he would break and carry her off anywhere she wanted to go.” - Nora Roberts

“Don’t ‘honey’ me in that southern-fried twang.” - Nora Roberts

“My boyfriend and I are badasses.” - Nora Roberts

“You can’t argue with math, Carter. You’ll always lose.” - Nora Roberts

“I love you. I don’t know when it started, years ago or weeks. But I know my heart’s lost to you, and I wouldn’t have it another way. You’re what I want, all there is of you.” - Nora Roberts

“It takes a lot of spine and stomach to make yourself into something when no one gives you a foundation.” - Nora Roberts

“Love’s scary, and sometimes it’s transient. But it’s worth the risks and the nerves. It’s even worth the pain.” - Nora Roberts

“Actually, I find it great fun to develop family series with lots of characters.” - Nora Roberts

“Roarke’s brow cocked as he noted Casto take in the black satin that slithered over Eve’s body. In the manner of men or unfriendly male dogs, Roarke showed his teeth.” - Nora Roberts

“I feel something for you, some dangerous thing, some volatile thing.” - Nora Roberts

“Decisions made quickly were almost always regretted quickly.” - Nora Roberts

“Love has no end, no borders, no limits. The more you give, the more there is.” - Nora Roberts

“People in hell want snowcones.” - Nora Roberts

“I’ve found out that falling in love doesn’t have anything to do with time. It can take a year or an instant. It happens when it’s ready to happen.” - Nora Roberts

“Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other.” - Nora Roberts

“Planting a flower’s like opening a book, because either way, you’re starting something. And your garden’s your library.” - Nora Roberts

“The wounded recognized the wounded.” - Nora Roberts

“Love didn’t run on logic. It didn’t follow neat lines or a list of priorities.” - Nora Roberts

“Dolls are like small dead people.” - Nora Roberts

“It was best not to think, not to analyze. It was best to accept and act.” - Nora Roberts

“I need to write to be happy.” - Nora Roberts

“Love birds don’t always sing pretty tunes.” - Nora Roberts

“When I left, it was for you. Coming back was for you. There’s nothing you can say, nothing you can do that would make me leave you again.” - Nora Roberts

“It’s an exceptional thing to have someone in your life who knows and understands you so well. Who loves who you are. A very exceptional thing.” - Nora Roberts

“Good fiction creates its own reality.” - Nora Roberts

“I loved the process of writing.” - Nora Roberts

“Getting a room’s not always enough. Sometimes you gotta close the door.” - Nora Roberts

“There is no disgrace in staying behind, not when it’s the right thing.” - Nora Roberts

“Magic is. But its power is nothing beside love.” - Nora Roberts

“There were too many idiot men in the world, to her way of thinking. And most of them ended up bumping up against stubborn women.” - Nora Roberts

“Caroline Waverly: Sometimes we hurt more for what might have been than for what is.” - Nora Roberts

“She was the only woman he was afraid he would beg for.” - Nora Roberts

“It was a joint, which put it one slippery step up from a dive.” - Nora Roberts

“I decided to write category romance as I’d recently discovered them, and enjoyed them.” - Nora Roberts

“You can have a coke since you never did learn to be civilized and drink coffee.” - Nora Roberts

“Don’t say hit and mountain in the same sentence.” - Nora Roberts

“The tune was sad, as the best of Ireland was, melancholy and lovely as a lover’s tears.” - Nora Roberts

“Necessity is often the mother of balls.” - Nora Roberts

“That was the biggest problem with getting used to someone, she thought. You were lonely when they weren’t there.” - Nora Roberts

“If love doesn’t make a fool of us, what will?” - Nora Roberts

“Love can really screw you up before you learn to live with it.” - Nora Roberts

“If that isn’t typical male stupidity! If something doesn’t work, kick it or swear at it!” - Nora Roberts

“I read a lot – and I read a variety of genres.” - Nora Roberts

“Every writer needs an editor. I don’t care how good you are or think you are.” - Nora Roberts

“Give them your brains, girl, never your guts.” - Nora Roberts

“Memories are nice little possessions. As long as you don’t ignore the present when you take them out to play.” - Nora Roberts

“You’re going to be unemployed if you really think you just have to sit around and wait for the muse to land on your shoulder.” - Nora Roberts

“The most important aspect of any story, to me, is character.” - Nora Roberts

“To fate and the strange way that it twists us all together.” - Nora Roberts

“Better, Cilla thought, to be alone on a quiet night than to be alone in a crowd. Much better.” - Nora Roberts

“She was singed, bleeding, bruised, and furiously alive.” - Nora Roberts

“I saw you standing on a veranda you’d built with your own hands. And I loved you.” - Nora Roberts

“Certainly the plagiarism, and dealing with the fallout of it, was the most difficult thing I’ve ever faced since I started writing.” - Nora Roberts

“I would hope that my writing’s cleaner than it was when I started.” - Nora Roberts

“What kind of a maniac needed over five thousand plates?” - Nora Roberts

“Grudges are bridges with faulty spans. Falling off one is a lot more rewarding than getting stuck on the other side.” - Nora Roberts

“I do indeed write on the road. My laptop goes with me everywhere.” - Nora Roberts

“Make life with me, one that comes from love, one that I can watch grow in you. Only a fool would believe that what comes from what we have together would be anything but beautiful.” - Nora Roberts

“To improve is to change; To be perfect is to change often." - Nora Roberts

“There’s an oatmeal cookie in there. I see no reason for the existence of oatmeal, particularly in cookies.” - Nora Roberts

“Anything worth anything can be found in books.” - Nora Roberts

“Did they know – the young and fearless – what a miraculous thing it was to have all of anyone?” - Nora Roberts

“I think sometimes fate cuts you a break. Like it says, okay, you’ve had enough of that crap, so it’s time you fell into something nice. See what you make out of it.” - Nora Roberts

“Body adornments show that we’re aware of our bodies and expect others to be aware as well.” - Nora Roberts

“I do not feel obliged in my reading. I read to be entertained and to relax, and to go into another world, not because it’s good for me.” - Nora Roberts

“Because when you hate something, you stop doing it.” - Nora Roberts

“When you reach for the stars, you lose blood and tears. That’s something you should remember.” - Nora Roberts

“Why are you always smiling? What do you know?” - Nora Roberts

“Courage comes in different forms. There’s strength – that’s the muscle. But love’s the heart. When you put them together, you can do anything.” - Nora Roberts

“I fear feeling my heartbreak a second time because I’m not sure I could survive it. I’d rather live alone than risk the pain.” - Nora Roberts

“I’ve been happy alone and I’ve been unhappy without you. I never wanted to depend on anyone, or to let myself care so much I could be made unhappy. But I depend on you and I love you.” - Nora Roberts

“Pretending the past doesn’t exist is as bad as living in it.” - Nora Roberts

“We make our own choices and we’re each responsible for them. Blame and credit belong to the individual. You haven’t the right to claim either from someone else.” - Nora Roberts

“Love is very funny business. And sex – well, let’s face it, sex is hysterical.” - Nora Roberts

“You don’t find time to write. You make time. It’s my job.” - Nora Roberts

“He was one of the many toads you have to go through to find the prince.” - Nora Roberts

“Why were there no buoys in life to show you the way?” - Nora Roberts

“Up to this point your life has pretty much sucked. You’re not responsible for that. But you are responsible for what happens from here on.” - Nora Roberts

“A woman with romance in her life lived as grandly as a queen because her heart was treasured.” - Nora Roberts

“That woman doesn’t have the sense God gave a retarded flea.” - Nora Roberts

“Life is never as long as we want it to be, and wasted time can never be recovered.” - Nora Roberts

“In the summer of 80, Silhouette bought my first book.” - Nora Roberts

“I’d suggest putting your head between your knees, but I think that’s physically impossible for you at the moment.” - Nora Roberts

“Mary Stewart will always be my goddess. I can pick up one of her early books – one I’ve read a dozen times – and still slide right into the story.” - Nora Roberts

“Grab it while you can because tomorrow could suck you dry.” - Nora Roberts

“Today should always be outlawed in favor of tomorrow.” - Nora Roberts

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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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