Love is by and large a perishable good and it is lamentable that young people are asked to make irrevocable, till-death-do-we-part decisions in the midst of a short-lived euphoria.
Miss Holmes smiled. She had dimples. Of course she did – the Good Lord went to ridiculous lengths to make sure that one of the finest minds in existence was housed in a body least likely to be suspected of it.
Come to think of it, he’d been pleased to find out that Lady Ingram had as little interest in breakfast as he did. Had thought it a further sign that they were true soul mates. Which only went to show that the choice of soul mates should not be left to barely post-adolescent young men.
How did one deal with such ingrained cowardice? Then I realized that there is no such thing as courage in the absence of cowardice. Courage is also a choice: It’s what happens when one refuses to give in to fear.
She sighed – every sublime moment must come with a bereft hour.
Miss Charlotte was often and spectacularly silent. But her silence was that of the woods and hills, a natural absence of speech. The maharani’s, on the other hand, made Mrs. Watson think of the walled forts of Jaipur, a silence that watched and hid.
Such a lonely feeling, being hopelessly in love.
What do you do when you despair, and there isn’t an August Rain to drown your sorrow?
And then Sherlock Holmes had turned out to be a woman with loose morals and no remorse.
He admired her surety. She knew her own worth and did not pretend otherwise for those who judged her on her parentage. But by refusing to tolerate fools and play nice, she’d condemned herself to a solitary path, both in defeat and in victory.
Her silence wasn’t simply distracted; there was something unnerving about it. He felt as if he stood on the prow of a ship, watching the captain scan the horizon for signs of impending disaster only the latter could recognize.
I don’t put up with your thorns. I like them.
Patience is an overrated virtue. It’s much more fun to have what you want now – especially since there is no guarantee that a longer wait will produce better results.
She understood the charges of profligacy and shallowness pelted at the Upper Ten Thousand, at those whose entire lives revolved around endless arrays of entertainment. But she also knew that for those on the inside, it was the only way they had been taught to live. Few, in the end, ever truly defied the way they were taught to live.
Many people, women especially, she had observed, responded to a compliment by explaining what they had – or hadn’t done – to merit it.
It’s far easier for people who want the same things to fall in love than for people who want different things to remain in love.
God gives us only one life. But with good books, we can live a hundred, even a thousand lives in the time we are allotted on this earth.
That women should be valued for their work and that women, especially, should not devalue the work of other women.
Into many lives a little irregularity must fall.
A house that Charlotte thought to be “slightly extravagant”? Charlotte, who had never met a garish color combination she didn’t immediately wish to add to her own wardrobe?