Cecily Quotes

“But what of you?” Gabriel said, and they
were very close now, almost touching. “It is
your choice to make now, to stay or return.”
“I will stay,” Cecily said. “I choose the
war.”
Gabriel let out the breath he hadn’t realized
he was holding. “You will give up your
home?”
“A drafty old house in Yorkshire?” Cecily
said. “This is London.”
“And give up what is familiar?”
“Familiar is dull.”
“And give up seeing your parents? It is
against the Law …”
She smiled, the glimmer of a smile.
“Everyone breaks the Law.”
“Cecy,” he said, and closed the distance
between them, though it was not much, and
then he was kissing her—his hands awkward
around her shoulders at first, slipping on the
stiff taffeta of her gown before his fingers
slid behind her head, tangling in her soft,
warm hair. She stiffened in surprise before
softening against him, the seam of her lips
parting as he tasted the sweetness of her
mouth. When she drew away at last, he felt
light-headed. “Cecy?” he said again, his
voice hoarse.
“Five,” she said. Her lips and cheeks were
flushed, but her gaze was steady.
“Five?” he echoed blankly.
907/1090
“My rating,” she said, and smiled at him.
“Your skill and technique may, perhaps, require
work, but the native talent is certainly
there. What you require is practice.”
“And you are willing to be my tutor?”
“I should be very insulted if you chose another,”
she said, and leaned up to kiss him
again.”
― Cassandra Clare

“Her betrothed is a lout, her father is a boor; and now her brother is trailing around looking like a thunderstorm about to burst. Men are not sensible creatures.'

'Thank you,' said Robin.”
― Robin McKinley, The Outlaws of Sherwood

“Her whole childhood, she'd devoured stories of children with dead and missing mothers, often easier to find than stories of children whose mothers were alive and well. The absence of a mother was a promise of adventure; mothers made things too safe, too comforting. Children with mothers didn't need to look outside their homes for affirmation of their supremacy in someone's story. They didn't need to write their own protagonism.

Esther remembered Cecily complaining about this when they'd watched The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White, offended by the lack of loving birth mothers and the prevalence of monstrous stepmothers. She'd squeezed Esther tight and smeared her cheek with red kisses and said, 'This evil stepmother loves you very much.' But despite Cecily's love, which Esther had never doubted, she had already identified within herself the same motherless quality that drove Ariel to shore, Cinderella to the ball, Snow White into the forest. Her motherlessness was intrinsic to her sense of self, and her sense of self was all she had these many years alone.

What would it mean if her mother was alive? Not only alive, but aware of Esther and watching out for her, passing notes through magic mirrors and protecting her from afar, her own fairy godmother. What would it mean if her mother had not died, but left her?”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“I fell in love with you first,' Cecily always said to Esther. 'Your father was a bonus.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“...the tension between them was so thick and sticky it was almost visible, like layers of cobweb.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Wasn't wishing someone unprotected the same as wishing them harm?”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“Male or female, that cat will be named Cecily because all cats are like Cecily--- contrary, exquisitely standoffish, fussy about food--- and sometimes they pretend they don't need you or love you even though they do.”
― Vicky Zimmerman, Miss Cecily's Recipes for Exceptional Ladies

“But this is where fact and fiction diverge, because Cecily and Zimmy did have a child, a son, Jeremy, who is my father. Cecily and Zimmy remained happily married for fifty-three years. My grandpa died in 1987; Grandma survived him by nearly two decades. She died peacefully in her sleep, at home, at the age of one hundred, shortly after welcoming her first great-granddaughter into the world (and receiving a birthday card from the queen).
Unlike the eponymous Cecily, in real life, Cecily was good-natured, though she did complain of boredom a lot. She adored art, food, and books and always encouraged me to write. This is not the first time she has been featured in a work of fiction. Prior to Miss Cecily's Recipes for Exceptional Ladies, I published four novels under the pseudonym Stella Newman. In my first, the bestseller, Pear Shaped, the heroine's grandmother is based on Cecily. I suspect she'd have been pleased about that, and even more pleased to be taking center stage now.
I was privileged to have her as a grandmother.”
― Vicky Zimmerman, Miss Cecily's Recipes for Exceptional Ladies