There are young women who have goals other than finding a husband.
No one ever thinks their own behavior is immoral, only other people’s.
All I would ever ask of a wife,” he murmured, “is that she would bear me some affection. That she might be happy to see me at the end of the day.
I’ve heard that hat making drives people mad,” Pandora remarked. “Which I don’t understand, because it doesn’t seem tedious enough to do that.” “It isn’t the job that drives them mad,” West said. “It’s the mercury solution they use to smooth the felt. After repeated exposure, it addles the brain. Hence the term ’mad as a hatter.
My God. I love you so much that I’m drowning in it. I can’t defend against it.
Wh-what rational woman would ever want a husband who looks like you?
Just because you don’t understand or agree with something doesn’t mean that it lacks merit.
It was insane to let a creature so perfectly beautiful and artlessly spirited and vulnerable as his wife venture out into a world that could crush her with casual unconcern, and he had no choice but to allow it. But he had no illusions about ever being comfortable with it. For the rest of his life, he would feel a stab of dread every time she walked out the door, leaving him there with his heart wide open.
He was charmed out of all reason as he watched her, this sandy, disheveled, storytelling mermaid, who seemed already to belong to him and yet wanted nothing to do with him. His heart worked in strange rhythms, as if it were struggling to adjust to a brand new metronome. What was happening to him?
Helen if you continue to fondle the bastard right in front of me, I’ll have to dislocate his other shoulder.
Helen likes Brussels sprouts. How can anyone trust her opinion?
I think I’m in love with her. Either that, or I have a stomach disease with a side effect of uncontrollable sweating.
West stood and strode to the door. “Is this what it’s like to have a family?” he asked irritably. “Endless arguing, and talking about feelings from dawn to dusk? When the devil can I do as I please and not have to account to a half-dozen people for it?” “When you live alone on an island with a single palm tree and a coconut,” Kathleen snapped. “And even then, I’m sure you would find the coconut far too demanding.
He’s not going to die, you know. It’s only nice, saintly people who suffer untimely deaths.” She gave a quiet laugh. “Whereas selfish bastards like St. Vincent live to torment other people for decades.
Oh, very simple,” Derek jeered. “It doesn’t matter that I was born a bastard. She deserves nothing better than a man with a false name, fine clothes, and a sham accent. It’s not important that I have no family and no religion. I don’t believe in sacred causes, or honor, or unselfish motives. I can’t be innocent enough for her. I never was. But why should that matter to her?
She was so endearing, so indomitable, that Gabriel was wrenched with a feeling he’d never known before, as if all the extremes of joy and despair had been compressed into some new emotion that threatened to crack the walls of his heart.
This was an ancient Romany courtship rite, and there would be nothing halfhearted about it. She was going to be kidnapped and ravished. Finally.
His hand passed repeatedly over her hair in the gentlest of caresses, and she heard him murmur in his dark-angel voice, “Rest, my love. I’m watching over you.
No young woman wants to marry after reading Tolstoy.
Daisy,” Westcliff said gently, “most lives are not distinguished by great achievements. They are measured by an infinite number of small ones. Each time you do a kindness for someone or bring a smile to his face, it gives your life meaning. Never doubt your value, little friend. The world would be a dismal place without Daisy Bowman in it.