WALLIS SIMPSON

For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.

There can be nothing more baffling in a human relationship than silence, the dark loom of doubts and questions unexpressed.

I'm not a beautiful woman. I'm nothing to look at, so the only thing I can do is dress better than anyone else.

There is a peacefulness, an air of reflection, about a rocking-chair that attaches to no other moving object.

There can be no summary and dramatic end to a marriage - only a slow and painful unravelling of a tangled skein of threads too stubborn to be broken.

Never explain, never complain.

The real essence of any marriage that has struggled, however unsuccessfully, towards happiness, lies in the growth of a wordless understanding that what is acceptable to one partner will be acceptable to the other.

A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compelling situation or challenge, and each marked off by some intense experience.

I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.

All this was mine; but I was a long time learning that wisdom and experience are things apart; that to taste life is not to be confused with understanding what life is really all about. The shared experiences, the wisdom so freely proffered by others, in words and in example, rarely swayed me for long. Came another day and the import was gone, and only the echo of the laughter remained. Experience was a revolving sun in the warmth of which I was content to bask.

I am so anxious for you not to abdicate and I think the fact that you do is going to put me in the wrong light to the entire world because they will say that I could have prevented it.

Forgive me for not writing but this man is exhausting.

I have always had the courage for the new things that life sometimes offers.

You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.

Never explain, never complain.

I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.

A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compelling situation or challenge, and each marked off by some intense experience.

PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' beaux.

I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascinating than any fashion salon.

For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.

You can never be too rich or too thin.

I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.

The real essence of any marriage that has struggled, however unsuccessfully, towards happiness, lies in the growth of a wordless understanding that what is acceptable to one partner will be acceptable to the other.

Fortunately for the human race, pain, however piercing, is not a lasting emotion. The recollection of happiness lingers, but the consciousness never retains for long the first thrust of tragic loss. The details of daily life crowd in upon the mind.

There can be nothing more baffling in a human relationship than silence, the dark loom of doubts and questions unexpressed.

A marriage, even one that goes awry, generates claims and needs that persist like an afterglow long after the emotional fire is burned out.

I'm not a beautiful woman. I'm nothing to look at, so the only thing I can do is dress better than anyone else.

All this was mine; but I was a long time learning that wisdom and experience are things apart; that to taste life is not to be confused with understanding what life is really all about. The shared experiences, the wisdom so freely proffered by others, in words and in example, rarely swayed me for long. Came another day and the import was gone, and only the echo of the laughter remained. Experience was a revolving sun in the warmth of which I was content to bask.

I was a long time learning that wisdom and experience are things apart; that to taste life is not to be confused with understanding what life is really all about.

There can be no summary and dramatic end to a marriage - only a slow and painful unravelling of a tangled skein of threads too stubborn to be broken.

There is a peacefulness, an air of reflection, about a rocking-chair that attaches to no other moving object.