Pat Donlin

“Even now, three years later, when she opens the drawer beside the stove for an oven mitt, she finds the oven mitts folded. This is because, three years earlier, during an intense game of Scattergories, when the category was Things You Fold and the letter was O, her husband had written oven mitts. “Nobody folds oven mitts,” she scoffed, and refused him his point, forcing him, ever since, to prove it.”
― Beth Ann Fennelly, The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs

“The profession, either navy or army, is its own justification. It has every thing in its favour; heroism, danger, bustle, fashion. Soldiers and sailors are always acceptable in society. Nobody can wonder that men are soldiers and sailors.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“They are disagreeing, vehemently and enjoyably, about the politics of Malawi, where Gordon has recently been. Gordon advises the ministers of such places on how to manage their economies. ‘Rubbish, Claudia,’ he says. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve never been to the damn place.’ ‘Since when,’ says Claudia, ‘did I depend on personal experience for an informed opinion?’ And they both laugh.”
― Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger

“Sometimes, in order to keep from quitting, you must bully or cajole yourself. You are fatigued from this reading, though it doesn’t show, so you get no credit for your stamina. If only, when reading difficult material, your face grew red and sweaty. If only your breathing grew ragged and labored. Like during great exertion at the gym. Dead Lift and Chest Press. Hammer Curl and Lat Raise. And now, the hardest exercise of all: Lick Finger to Turn Page. You can do it, B.A.: two more sets of eight reps.”
― Beth Ann Fennelly, The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs