Emily!

“Our female friends, the close ones, are the mini-breaks we take from the totalitarian work it requires to keep up the performance of being female.”
― Chelsea G. Summers, A Certain Hunger

“I can see he's not in your good books,' said the messenger.
'No, and if he were I would burn my library.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“Among the swirling daffodils the old labrador lay out in the teeth of the gale. Her head was raised, her ears were pricked; alertly she snuffed the air; she watched the world turn, the new season approach. Looking at her Janet thought in sharp sorrow, “I will never see this again,” for now the labrador could scarcely walk; her hind legs were emaciated and she had to be helped in and out and up and down the stairs. Yet she was crouched there, unafraid, welcoming with dignity of whatever was to come, among the reckless, gaudy flowers whose time was even briefer. “Fair daffodils, we weep to see you haste away so soon.” Fair labrador. Sometimes Janet thought that life’s sole purpose was to teach one how to die. As in most spheres, so in this, animals did better than people”
― Elspeth Barker, O Caledonia