Christina

“For years now, she had woken up like a runner leaping from the starting blocks - her body yanked into consciousness by a baby's wail, the sound of the puppy vomiting, the growl of the trash truck two doors away, their own trash cans still waiting to be put out on the curb. Sleep tossed over her shoulder as she sprinted down the hall, leaving dreams in a scattered trail behind her. (p125)”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“I'm learning there is no one way for life to be lived, no one way to be strong or brave or kind or good. Rather there are many people doing the best they can with the heart they are given and the hand they are dealt. Our best is all we can do, and all we can hold on to is each other.”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

“Everyone has heard stories of women like us—cautionary tales, morality plays, warnings of what will befall you if you are a girl too wild for the world, a girl who asks too many questions or wants too much. If you set off into the world alone. Everyone has heard stories of women like us, and now we will make more of them.”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

“She didn't want to go home to New England, to her family who would think of her as the girl who had gotten on the plane, a girl she had grown past, like a train overtaking the cars on the highway, heading into mountains and valleys that her family had never seen, wouldn't recognize. (p25)”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners