Emily Brown

“The melons looked all right, but there’s not much inside them when you cut them open.’ ‘Those mooncakes are good, aren’t they?’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘They were made by our new pastry-cook. I tried them myself to make sure they were all right before venturing to send you any. As for the melons: we’ve been lucky in previous years, but for some reason none of them this year seem to be any good.’ ‘I think we must blame the weather,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘The rains this year were excessive.”
― Cao Xueqin, The Warning Voice

“Just me, alone, scrubbing dishes on Christmas, miserable and alone, and probably having years and years of the same scenario to look forward to.”
― Meg Muldoon, Murder in Christmas River

“Even when breathing out, a dog is still sucking air in. In one experiment, an English pointer (who was curiously named Sir Satan) created an uninterrupted inward airstream for 40 seconds, despite exhaling 30 times during that period.”
― Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

“the admission process in the Rotunda began when a pregnant woman requested an admission ticket from the porter at the hospital lodge. Her name and address were recorded, after which she sought recommendation for admission from a clergyman, hospital governor or ‘responsible citizen’.22 With a recommendation secured, the woman attended the hospital dispensary on the following day to have her admission ticket countersigned by the assistant master on duty.”
― Elaine Farrell, 'She said she was in the family way': Pregnancy and infancy in modern Ireland