Again But Better Book Quotes

I just learned two things there at that college, Mr. Ford, that was ever of any use to me. One was that I couldn't do any worse than the people that were in the saddle, so maybe I'd better try pulling 'em down and riding myself. The other was a definition I got out of the agronomy book, and I reckon it was even more important than the first. It did more to revise my thinking, if I'd really done any thinking up until that time. Before that I'd seen everything in black and white, good and bad. But after I was set straight I saw that the name you put to a thing depended on where you stood and where it stood. And…and here's the definition, right out of the agronomy books: 'A weed is a plant out of place.' Let me repeat that. 'A weed is a plant out of place.' I find a hollyhock in my cornfield, and it's a weed. I find it in my yard, and it's a flower. ~ Jim Thompson

There are two kinds of people, I think: those who want to know the future and those who do not. I've never met anyone ambivalent about this. I have been both kinds. For now, I think I know which one is better, but I'm prepared to change my mind again. It may be I am like that drunk who tells himself he can handle his alcohol now. But if I told you I could tell the future, you would laugh at me. And I would laugh at me too. ~ Alexander Chee

I want to be strong."
"You are strong."
"Not really."
Judd exhaled softly. "No, I guess not, but you're stronger than you think. You're stronger than when we met. Hell, you told me no and we both know that couldn't have been easy."
Giving him a little grin, I shrugged again. "Wasn't that hard either."
"Liar."
Grinning wider, I sighed. "I really wanted you."
Judd's smile faded. "I know. I wanted you too."
"That time has passed."
"No. We still want it. That's why you look at me like I'm both your salvation and a death sentence. You still want me and I clearly still want you."
"You walked away."
"I wanted you to do well on your own."
"Then let me."
"Now, I want you to do well on your own with me standing nearby. Also with me frequently inside you."
"Don't be nasty."
"It wouldn't be. Somehow, it'd be better than anything I've known."
Even as my skin flushed at the thought of us alone and naked, I shrugged with disinterest. "That's the Arby's thing talking."
"Stop with the Arby's shit, will you? You're a beautiful chick and I can't get you out of my head. Comparing you to a fucking shit eatery isn't acceptable. It's like comparing the Sistine Chapel to my auntie's house. Ain't even close. ~ Bijou Hunter

Hotel Du Lac
Edith, once again anonymous, and accepting her anonymity, made an appropriately inconspicuous exit. And, sitting in the deserted salon, the first to arrive from the dining room, she felt her precarious dignity hard-pressed and about to succumb in the light of her earlier sadness. The pianist, sitting down to play, gave her a brief nod. She nodded back, and thought how limited her means of expression had become: nodding to the pianist or to Mme de Bonneuil, listening to Mrs Pusey, using a disguised voice in the novel she was writing and, with all of this, waiting for a voice that remained silent, hearing very little that meant anything to her at all. The dread implications of this condition made her blink her eyes and vow to be brave, to do better, not to give way. But it was not easy. ~ Anita Brookner

You might think that the most stolen vehicles are expensive sports vehicles or multipurpose passenger vehicles, but that's not always the case-HOW TO STOP YOUR CAR FROM BEING STOLEN, Author, V J SMITH BARNES AND NOBLE NOOK BOOK ~ V J Smith

Meantime, let me ask myself one question--Which is better?--To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort--no struggle;--but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time--for he would--oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He DID love me--no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me--it is what no man besides will ever be.--But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one hour- -suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next- -or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? ~ Charlotte Bronte

I love you." For a start, we'd better put these words on a high shelf; in a square box behind glass which we have to break with our elbow; in a bank. We shouldn't leave them lying around the house like a tube of vitamin C. If the words come too easily to hand, we'll use them without thought; we won't be able to resist. Oh, we say we won't, but we will. We'll get drunk, or lonely, or - likeliest of all - plain damn hopeful, and there are the words gone, used up, grubbied. We think we might be in love and we're trying out the words to see if they're appropriate? How can we know what we think till we hear what we say? Come off it; that won't wash. These are grand words; we must make sure we deserve them. Listen to them again: "I love you. ~ Julian Barnes

A good watch may serve to keep a recconing at Sea for some days and to know the time of a Celestial Observ[at]ion: and for this end a good Jewel watch may suffice till a better sort of Watch can be found out. But when the Longitude at sea is once lost, it cannot be found again by any watch. ~ Isaac Newton

Hello," I said stiffly.
His smile split into a full grin."So nice to see you again."
"Always a pleasure." My lie sounded robotic, but hopefully it was better than sounding afraid.
"No,no," he said. "The pleasure's all mine."
"If you say so,"I said. ~ Richelle Mead

This was the first thing I ever said, "All right, I'm gonna try to do the very best I can." Instead of doing this, "All right, I'll work at like three-quarters speed, and then I can always figure that if I just hadn't been a fuckup, the book coulda been really good." You know that defense system? You write the paper the night before, so if it doesn't get a great grade, you know that it could've been better.
And this worked
I worked as hard as I could on this. And in a weird way, you might think that would make me more nervous about whether people would like it. But there was this weird
you know like when you work out really well, there's this kind of tiredness that's real pleasant, and it's sort of placid. ~ David Lipsky

It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well - better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning; or "doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words - in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as an afterthought. A ~ George Orwell

Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,
Marching below, and we still gulping wine?"
From the sad magic of his fragrant cup
The red-faced old centurion started up,
Cursed, battered on the table. "No," he said,
"Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion's dead,
Dead in the first year of this damned campaign -
The Legion's dead, dead, and won't rise again.
Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die,
But we need pity also, you and I,
Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss,
Who live to see the Legion come to this,
Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot,
Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot.
O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh!
Where are they now? God! watch it struggle by,
The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine.
Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!"
"Strabo," said Gracchus, "you are strange tonight.
The Legion is the Legion; it's all right.
If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking,
God damn it! you'll not better them by drinking.
They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands.
The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands,
And these same men before the autumn's fall
Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul. ~ Robert Graves

Despite the madness of war, we lived for a world that would be different. For a better world to come when all this is over. And perhaps even our being here is a step towards that world. Do you really think that, without the hope that such a world is possible, that the rights of man will be restored again, we could stand the concentration camp even for one day? It is that very hope that makes people go without a murmur to the gas chambers, keeps them from risking a revolt, paralyses them into numb inactivity. It is hope that breaks down family ties, makes mothers renounce their children, or wives sell their bodies for bread, or husbands kill. It is hope that compels man to hold on to one more day of life, because that day may be the day of liberation. Ah, and not even the hope for a different, better world, but simply for life, a life of peace and rest. Never before in the history of mankind has hope been stronger than man, but never also has it done so much harm as it has in the war, in this concentration camp. We were never taught how to give up hope, and this is why today we perish in gas chambers. ~ Tadeusz Borowski

Time does not heal all wounds. Never does and never will ... it only strengthens the muscles of our heart to make us stronger but in truth the memories of those who passed through our lives shall always be with us until we meet again ... giving us both joy and pain. It up to each individual to use it to better ourselves or destroys us ... for it is a two edge sword. May we all use it to better our lives. ~ Timothy Pina

But as she rounded the last turn before the hall landing, she nearly collided with Sir Ian, carrying his mother's shawl.
"Oh!" Lina exclaimed, coming to an abrupt halt a step above his.
"Rather careless of you to leave this behind," he said.
He was too close.
"Aye, it was," she agreed, stepping back up a step to gain more space.
His eyes danced. "Mayhap I should demand a penance before returning it."
"You dare," she said, stiffening and wishing he were not so fiendishly beguiling with that boyish gleam of mischief in his eyes. He was definitely not just a mischievous boy anymore, though. And, for a lady to encourage such behavior . . .
He looked up, as if to heaven, and murmured, "Just one wee ki - "
"Shame on you, Sir Ian Colquhoun," she interjected, thinking she sounded just like her mother. "Galbraith cannot know that you are on this stairway."
"Once again, you are wrong, lass," he said, his eyes still alight. "He is still with Lizzie on the dais - giving her a well-deserved scolding, I trust. I saw that you had left the shawl and offered to find a maidservant to return it to you. But this is much better. I do think you should thank me prettily for taking so much trouble."
"I will thank you. After you have returned it to me."
Cocking his head, he held the shawl higher, so she'd have to reach for it.
When she did, he moved it back out of her reach.
Lina lowered her outstretched hand to her side and eyed him st ~ Amanda Scott

I was receiving at least ninety-nine incredible, positive, and life-changing responses for every negative or abusive one, yet I couldn't stop looking at the one percent. I couldn't get them out of my mind. I let them kill my excitement. I let them destroy my love for what I was doing. I let them shut me down. I let them bully me into changing the way I did things around here.
I almost stopped. I almost gave up. I almost quit writing.
But every time, I remembered my dad.
He taught me better than that.
And I forced myself to be excited again. I forced myself to see the goal and vision of why I was excited in the first place. I forced myself to start skipping over the negative replies and start diving into the loving ones. ~ Dan Pearce

For if after the have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment given unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned unto his own vomit again: and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. 2 Peter 2:20-22 KJV ~ Robert M. Price

Cruising along once again in this cesspool known as life, I realize that it is too late to make a detour. I will have to pass the anti-abortion pickets (50) outside of Planned Parenthood. Nothing gets on my nerves more than these pro-lifers. Not even astrology enthusiasts (51), Herman Hesse (52) or computer games (53). Look at these fools parading up and down! "Mind your own business," I yell. When one of these busybodies (a man, yet) approaches my car with literature, I lose control and scream, "I wish I was a girl so I could get an abortion!" Trembling with rage, I realize I'd better calm down before I get beat up, but can't resist one last taunt - "I hate the pope" (54), I yell to no one in particular. ~ John Waters

If you don't try, you can't fail. If you do try, you might fail anyway. But better to have failed than never tried. ~ Chloe Thurlow

The auctioneer turned to face her. He raised his knife again. Kestrel had just enough time to remember the sound of a hammer against anvil, to think of all the weapons Arin had forged, and to realize that if he had wanted to make more on the side it wouldn't have been heard.
The auctioneer advanced on her.
Not hard at all.
"No," said Arin. "She's mine."
The man paused. "What?"
Arin strolled toward them, stepping in the housekeeper's blood. He stood next to the auctioneer, his stance loose and careless. "She's mine. My prize. Payment for services rendered. A spoil of war." Arin shrugged. "Call her what you like. Call her my slave."
Shame poured into Kestrel, as poisonous as anything her friends must have drunk at the ball.
Slowly, the auctioneer said, "I'm a little worried about you, Arin. I think you've lost clarity on the situation."
"Is there something wrong with treating her the way she treated me?"
"No, but--"
"The Valorian army will return. She's the general's daughter. She's too valuable to waste."
The auctioneer sheathed his knife, but Kestrel couldn't sheathe her dread. This sudden alternative to death didn't seem like a better one.
"Just remember what happened to your parents," the auctioneer told Arin. "Remember what Valorian soldiers did to your sister."
Arin's gaze cut to Kestrel. "I do."
"Really? Where were you during the assault on the estate? I expected to find my second-in-command here. Inst ~ Marie Rutkoski

War brings out the worst and the best in people. Wars do not make men great, but they do bring out the greatness in good men. War is romantic only to those who are far away from the sounds and turmoil of battle. For those of us who served in Easy Company, and for those who served their country in other theaters, we came back as better men and women as a result of being in combat, and most would do it again if called upon. But each of us hoped that if we had learned anything from the experience it is that war is unreal, and we earnestly hoped that it would never happen again. ~ Dick Winters

The bottom line is that if you are in hell, the only way out is to go through a period of sustained misery. Misery is, of course, much better than hell, but it is painful nonetheless. By refusing to accept the misery that it takes to climb out of hell, you end up falling back into hell repeatedly, only to have to start over and over again. ~ Marsha M. Linehan

The prophecy is here: When the storm calms, when rain and fire again leave the country in peace, the world will no longer be the world, but something better. ~ Subcomandante Marcos

You are worthy, important, and necessary. And smart. You may ask how I know and I'll tell you how. It's because right now? YOU'RE READING. That's what the sexy people do. Other, less awesome people might currently be in their front yards chasing down and punching squirrels, but not you. You're quietly curled up with a book designed to make you a better, happier, more introspective person. ~ Jenny Lawson

Now, on the subject of deterrence, I admit that there can be little doubt that as presently administered in the United States, the death penalty is not a general deterrent to murder in many, if not most, situations. . . .

But of one thing I am certain: it is, by God, a specific deterrent. No one who has been executed has ever taken another innocent life. And until such time as we really mean it as a society when we say 'imprisonment for life,' I, and the families of countless victims, would sleep better at night knowing there is no chance that the worst of these killers will ever again be able to prey on others. Even then, I personally believe that if you choose to take another human life, you ought to be prepared to pay with your own. ~ John E. Douglas

Ladislaw lingering behind while Naumann had gone into the Hall of Statues where he again saw Dorothea, and saw her in that brooding abstraction which made her pose remarkable. She did not really see the streak of sunlight on the floor more than she saw the statues: she was inwardly seeing the light of years to come in her own home and over the English fields and elms and hedge-bordered highroads; and feeling that the way in which they might be filled with joyful devotedness was not so clear to her as it had been. But in Dorothea's mind there was a current into which all thought and feeling were apt sooner or later to flow - the reaching forward of the whole consciousness towards the fullest truth, the least partial good. There was clearly something better than anger and despondency. ~ George Eliot

Trace started to wave toward Matt, still with Priss wrapped around him, and she blurted, "I love you, Trace."
That effectively drew him to a halt. His hands contracted on her backside. "What?"
"I love you." Then she pointed at Chris, and to where Matt had disappeared. "They told me to fess up, so I am, and if you reject me, I swear I'll drown them both."
Very slowly, Trace's expression changed from the heat of anger to a different type of heat. "Say it again."
"Why?" She frowned at him with challenge. "Why don't you say something first?"
"All right." Sliding his hands up her back, over her shoulders, and into her wet hair, he kissed her. "You make me nuts, Priscilla." He turned his head and kissed her again, a little longer this time. "You make me hot as hell, too."
"I love you," Priss reminded him, hoping it might prompt him to a more telling declaration.
His next kiss lasted long enough to take the chill off the lake, and Priss got so wrapped up in the taste of him that she almost forgot what she wanted to hear.
Chris didn't. From the dock, he said, "If you're going to keep her waiting like this, someone needs to finish putting sunscreen on her."
Trace moved fast, grabbing for Chris's ankle, but Chris jumped back out of reach.
Priss, feeling very affected by that kiss, nuzzled Trace's neck and stroked his shoulders. He smelled delicious, felt even better. "Stop being a voyeur, Chris, and go away."
Having joined Chris o ~ Lori Foster

Your generation is suffering from what for lack of a better word I shall call over-debunk. There was a lot of debunking that had to be done, of course. Bigotry, militarism, nationalism, religious intolerance, hypocrisy, phonyness, all sorts of dangerous, ready-made, artificially preserved false values. But your generation and the generation before yours went too far with their debunking job. You went overboard. Over-debunk, that's what you did. It's moral overkill. It's like those insecticides Rachel Carson speaks of in her book, that poison everything, and kill all the nice, useful bugs as well as the bad ones, and in the end poison human beings as well. In the end, it poisons life itself, the very air we breathe. That's what you did, morally and intellectually speaking. Yours is a silent spring. You have overprotected yourselves. You are all no more than twenty, twenty-two years old, but yours is a silent spring, I'm telling you. Nothing sings for you any more. ~ Romain Gary

When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book's plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body of flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way. A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot, makes it less fearful by containing it in a kind of game format. [from an interview with DeCurtis] ~ Don DeLillo

'Looking For Alaska' by John Green is a very great book. I feel like every teenage girl says John Green's 'Fault In Our Stars,' but 'Looking For Alaska' is better. ~ Alessia Cara

When person A loves person B," he began, "person A gets upset at the thought of never seeing person B again."
He meant me.
He meant he loved me.
But now I knew that love was a poisonous thing. It had turned me into a murderer. I would die with my secret before I would tell.
"It's better that way," I lied, "because person B doesn't love person A back. ~ Cherie Bennett

I am constantly mystified by what John ends up remembering… I just don't understand why he's able to hang on to information like that, while so many other more important memories evaporate.
Then again, I suppose so much of what stays with us is often insignificant. The memories we take to the ends of our lives have no real rhyme or reason, especially when you think of the endless things that you do over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. All the cups of coffee, hand-washings, changes of clothes, lunches, goings to the bathroom, headaches, naps, walks to school, trips to the grocery store, conversations about the weather - all the things so unimportant they should be immediately forgotten.
Yet they aren't. I often think of the Chinese red bathrobe I had when I was twenty-seven years old; the sound of our first cat Charlie's feet on the linoleum of our old house; the hot rarefied air around aluminum pot the moment before the kernels of popcorn burst open. I think of these things as often as I think about getting married or giving birth or the end of the Second World War.
What is truly amazing is that before you know it, sixty years go by and you can remember maybe eight or nine important events, along with a thousand meaningless ones. How can that be?
You want to think there's a pattern to it all because it makes you feel better, gives you some sense of a reason why we're here, but there really isn't any. People look for God in thes ~ Michael Zadoorian

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. ~ George Alec Effinger

Writers shouldn't fear criticism. Instead, they should fear silence. Criticism is healthy. It gets people thinking about your work and, even better, it gets them talking and arguing. But as for silence
it is the greatest killer of writers. So if you hate a book and want to hurt it
don't talk about it. And if you hate my books
please, for God's sake, shout it from the hills! ~ Robert Fanney

Because it's better to die on one's feet that+n live on one's knees," Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty convivtion. "I guess you've heard that saying before."
"Yes, I certainly have," mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. "But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees. ~ Joseph Heller

The years move forward and everyone is attending to their life's priorities, focusing on how to be happy, make a living, raise a family. The years turn into decades and sooner or later, (hopefully later) sickness or accidents happen and all are again confronted with the big questions: Why? What's next? What has this life that I've lived been about? As one begins to consider their own eventual departure: What have I been able to do to make things a little better? What have I passed along to make others' lives more beautiful? ~ Gene O'Neil

A man who has the ability to generate a new word and to inject it into the bloodstream of the language seems to me only a little lower than the Creator of light and darkness. If you write a book, you may be fortunate enough to be read for a while, until other, better books come along and take its place; but to produce a new word is to approach immortality. ~ Amos Oz

You don't cry anymore, but you don't feel like yourself anymore either. So start again. Start from infancy, get better, and rebuild an identity for yourself. ~ Dana Schwartz

It is a part of our office to stand uncloaked, masked, sword bared, upon the scaffold for a long time before the client is brought out. Some say this is to symbolize the unsleeping omnipresence of justice, but I believe the real reason is to give the crowd a focus, and the feeling that something is about to take place. A crowd is not the sum of the individuals who compose it. Rather it is a species of animal, without language or real consciousness, born when they gather, dying when they depart. Before the Hall of Justice, a ring of dimarchi surrounded the scaffold with their lances, and the pistol their officer carried could, I suppose, have killed fifty or sixty before someone could snatch it from him and knock him to the cobblestones to die. Still it is better to have a focus, and some open symbol of power.
Wolfe, Gene (1994-10-15). Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun' (p. 184). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition. ~ Gene Wolfe

Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading. ~ Ramakrishna

What's come before will come back around again. Republic was the way of the world before, and it'll be the way again. And for a time everyone will cheer them on, and everything will be cozy-dosie, but there will come a time when things go sour and someone decides they got a better way of doing things. ~ Chuck Wendig

I had tried years earlier to kill myself, and nearly died in the attempt, but did not consider it either a selfish or a not-selfish thing to have done. It was simply the end of what I could bear, the last afternoon of having to imagine waking up the next morning only to start all over again with a thick mind and black imaginings. It was the final outcome of a bad disease, a disease it seemed to me I would never get the better of. No amount of love from or for other people0and there was a lot-could help. No advantage of a caring family and fabulous job was enough to overcome the pain and hopelessness I felt; no passionate or romantic love, however strong, could make a difference. Nothing alive and warm could make its way in through my carapace. I knew my life to be a shambles, and I believed-incontestably-that my family, friends, and patients would be better off without me. There wasn't much of me left anymore, anyway, and I thought my death would free up the wasted energies and well-meant efforts that were being wasted on my behalf. (290) ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

Humans are conversant in many media (music, dance, painting), but all of them are analog except for the written word, which is naturally expressed in digital form (i.e. it is a series of discrete symbols - every letter in every book is a member of a certain character set, every "a" is the same as every other "a," and so on). As any communications engineer can tell you, digital signals are much better to work with than analog ones because they are easily copied, transmitted, and error-checked. Unlike analog signals, they are not doomed to degradation over time and distance. That ~ Neal Stephenson

The wife carries the burden of the marriage on her shoulders," his mother said. "Her husband, herself, both of them, their covenant, and everything else that gets added over the years. And all that is very, very heavy. It is in her power to keep the marriage alive and thriving, but also to drive it to the brink of crisis and back again. For whatever reason, men have not taken this role upon themselves. Perhaps they are not capable. Now, as you know, every empty space, every abyss created in nature fills itself, and this one is filled by women out of a sense of responsibility and maybe also the will to control. It's a simple matter, really, but in case you haven't understood, I'll explain it: your wife must be happy, satisfied, fulfilled, and impassioned, and then the burden of marriage will not be heavy for her. She'll be prepared to take it upon herself for better and for worse until the very day that one of you shuts your eyes for good. ~ Anat Talshir

She had always hoped that Jane could have looked out over her surroundings and thought: 'I can create a better world than this', or 'You're much too unbearably boring, and perhaps I can't say anything about it without being impolite, but you are going to be absolutely wonderful in my next book. I need another ridiculous minister.' Still, Sara couldn't help but wonder what life must be like if you couldn't daydream about Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (how had she decided on that name? One of literary history's most inexplicable mysteries), because you yourself had created him. ~ Katarina Bivald