Jacquelyn Benson > Quotes

“One cannot claim to be committed to righting injustice and then abandon that principle when it is not a matter that impacts one personally.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, Tomb of the Sun King

“If she were a man, no one would think twice about her decision to undertake such a venture. It was just another way the world tried to keep her sex at home, docile and bored to insanity.
To hell with all of them, she thought boldly.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Smoke Hunter

“Humanity was not kind to difference.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Fire in the Glass

“On the horizon, the dark line of the mountains was almost invisible, lost in the haze of late afternoon. Somewhere in their midst lay the goal of her map, the possible location of a stunning archaeological discovery. However far away those peaks might look today, they were there, and that meant they could be reached, one way or another.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Smoke Hunter

“things are rarely as simple as they seem on the surface.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“At that tender age, it had never occurred to Ellie that the life she wanted was an impossibility—that no amount of intelligence and determination would ever overcome the handicap of her gender.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, Empire of Shadows

“The motorcycle was about more than just speed. It was the freedom to be what she was without worrying about the eyes of society, of being exposed to them as an object of curiosity.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“she’d pursue it with the fearless tenacity of a terrier…”
― Jacquelyn Benson, Tomb of the Sun King

“Il baissa les yeux sur ses gants noirs.
— Si nos places étaient inversées, tu saurais déjà tout. Je t’ai soutiré tes secrets. Alors, de quel droit garderais-je les miens ?
— C’est ton droit, insista Lily sur un ton impassible.
Il éclata d’un rire qui frôlait le sanglot, et elle le rejoignit de l’autre côté de l’habitacle.
Il posa la tête contre sa poitrine et elle enfouit les doigts dans ses cheveux de velours.
— Je ne te mérite pas, dit-il, son souffle chaud contre sa clavicule.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Shadow of Water

“Perhaps because he had known that Lily wasn’t ready to hear it. She couldn’t accept his pride in her until she had found some in herself.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“Death is much harder on the living.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Fire in the Glass

“All of science had seemed like magic once, before years of painstaking study had revealed the secret rules that governed atoms, motion, and the void between.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Smoke Hunter

“there was more than one role she might play—that success and failure weren’t always so black and white. That sometimes to simply stand up and fight was enough, no matter the outcome of the battle.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“There is more than one right path,” Lily says. The dead woman smiles. “More than one of many things.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“In her experience, the more bluster someone made about a cause, the less nuance they admitted into their understanding. The truth didn’t come in neat bands of black and white. It was far messier than that.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“Tout cela était vrai, et pourtant, alors qu’elle l’étreignait, Lily ressentit une plus grande vérité encore. Une vérité évidente, indéniable, qu’elle devait absolument lui confesser.
— Je t’ai choisi, lui jura-t-elle en posant résolument la main sur la peau nue de sa nuque. Toi. Tel que tu es. Et personne d’autre.
Elle savait qu’il percevrait son assurance dans chacune de ses terminaisons nerveuses, chacune de ses cellules. Lorsqu’il leva la tête, ses yeux sombres rencontrèrent les siens. Ses mains gantées se resserrèrent dans son dos, l’attirant plus près de lui.
— Alors, je suis à toi, répondit-il.
Son aveu se propagea en elle avec la puissance d’une prophétie, et Lily comprit que quelque chose d’irrévocable venait de se produire entre eux – un contrat signé avec une encre plus indélébile que le sang.
Rien n’était certain. Le monde pourrait cesser avec l’aube, mais ce contrat perdurerait.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Shadow of Water

“Fear the pain of grief. Fear neglecting to embrace life with both your arms and draw all the joy out of it that you can. Fear being stingy with your love or your compassion. But do not fear Death.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“Nothing was ever really safe. If she waited for safety before reaching out for the chance of joy, she would be waiting forever.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“He remembered the flames and the silence and in a moment of wisdom understood what the power he contemplated was in truth: a great mouth, hungry and merciless, that would devour the world if it could.
Because no cause stood in absolute justice, and every victory came with a price paid in blood.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Smoke Hunter

“People weren’t simple. There would always be complications.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“Where one foot has tread, others will follow. It is foolishness to think it can be stopped. The whole world will be laid bare eventually, all its secrets dragged out of their hiding places and set down on your maps.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Smoke Hunter

“Everything was mortal. Everything changed. Even the people and places who seemed like they must be there forever passed, leaving emptiness behind them.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“It is not the place of government to tell anyone whom they may love.” Lily thought of many couples she had met during her time in the theater, of men like Mordecai Roth. Of Miss Bard and Estelle.

“But it does already.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“She understood it then. This man whose gentlemanly instincts wouldn’t let him see her take a hackney on her own had swallowed his own outrage and ceded control to her. It was something a shade braver than challenging her brother to pistols at dawn.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Fire in the Glass

“- Si tu dois avoir peur de quelque chose, c'est du chagrin du deuil, de ne pas prendre la vie à bras le corps et en tirer toute la joie que tu peux, d'être avare de ton amour ou de ta compassion. Mais tu n'as pas à avoir peur de la Mort.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Shadow of Water

“Not me, Miss Albright. You have done that all yourself. I have merely been privileged to witness it.”
― Jacquelyn Benson

“The world had grown bigger than it was the day before. She would not be boxed in by something so trivial as appearances. She had gone to war with fate and she had won. There had been a cost. She suspected there would always be a cost. It would not stop her from trying.”
― Jacquelyn Benson, The Shadow of Water