Zilpah had little use for men, whom she described as hairy, crude, and half human. Women needed men to make babies and to move heavy objects, but otherwise she didn’t understand their purpose, much less appreciate their charms.
I’ll give her the whole day off from work – with pay.
You know, Ava, it’s good to be smart, but kindness is more important. Oh dear, another old-lady chestnut to stitch on a sampler. Or maybe one of those cute little throw pillows.
Don’t let anyone tell you things aren’t better than they used to be.
My world got very small, the way it always does when someone in your family is sick.
When I look at my eighty-five-year-old face in the mirror today, I think, “You’re never going to look better than you do today, honey, so smile.
You told me about the other side of the universe, where darkness and light are not separated.
His whole life he tried to make things better for poor children, but his real calling was being a father. It was a talent with him. As soon as our girls could sit up, he was wheeling them to the library and taking out books to read them bedtime stories.
The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the world passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing.
Betty had never been skinny and she was never really fat. She still had a nice shape, but it was well upholstered now and her new dress made the best of it.
Never apologize for being smart.
When I think back, I get mad at what they did to those poor men. Ernie must have had PTSD – they called it shell shock – and the doctors told him to keep it all bottled up inside. They didn’t know any better, but it was like treating syphilis with candy bars.
Death does not linger where he is defeated.
Rachel could not even be promised, she told her husband. The girl might look ready to marry, but she was still unripe, having not yet bled. My grandmother claimed that Anath would curse the garden if Laban dared break this law and that she herself would find the strength to take a pestle to her husband’s head again.
Jacob accepted the situation. What else could he do? Furious, Rachel yelled at Adah, who cuffed her and told her to take her temper elsewhere. Rachel, in turn, slapped Bilhah, cursed at Zilpah, and snarled at Leah. She even kicked dust at Jacob’s feet, calling him a liar and a coward before bursting into pretty tears on his neck.
I am not certain whether my earliest memories are truly mine, because when I bring them to mind, I feel my mothers’ breath on every word.
Was Juliet a better poet than Romeo? If Juliet found out about Rosaline, would she still love Romeo? Should Juliet have given Paris a chance? Why is love so dangerous for Juliet? Why are Juliet’s parents so blind? Was the Nurse Juliet’s friend or enemy? Would Juliet have killed herself if she had been twenty-five years old instead of thirteen?
Some midwives said that pleasure overheated the seed and killed it. But others claimed that babies only come when women smile. This was the tale she told Jacob to inspire his caresses.
When I started teaching, I remembered how he talked to us, and you know what? If you treat every question like you’ve never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more. Including the teacher.
No one would ever call Katherine Walters a pretty woman: her face was strangely flat and one eye was a tiny bit higher than the other. After Flora left, she took off her hat, cut her bangs, and was suddenly striking and stylish, which is actually much better than pretty.