Harriet ✿

“This is for you,' he (the Alchemist) said, holding one of the parts (of gold) out to the monk. 'It's for your generosity to the pilgrims.'
'But this payment goes well beyond my generosity,' the monk responded.
'Don't say that again. Life might be listening, and give you less the next time.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“consciences r 4 bone clocks marinus, u r 1 beaten woman”
― David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks

“You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her—you may not know what I mean by The Angel in the House. [...] She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. [...] She was pure. [...] She slipped behind me and whispered: 'My dear, you are a young woman. [...] Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure. [...] I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. [...] Indeed it will be a long time still, I think, before a woman can sit down...without finding a phantom to be slain, a rock to be dashed against.”
― Virginia Woolf

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist