lucy black

“People are no damn good.”
― William Steig, The Lonely Ones

“. . . And she said it was a pity, because my father was so “keen”, and what did I care about?

So I said, well, I was not quite sure, but on the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all around me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn’t think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to express opinions about things (like love, and isn’t so-and-so peculiar?). So then she said, oh, well, didn’t I think I could try to be a little less slack, because of Father, and I said no, I was I afraid I couldn’t; and after that she left me alone. But all the others still said I was no good.”
― Stella Gibbons

“It was a rigorous life, but for Janet it was softened by the landscape, by reading, and by the animals whom she found it possible to love without qualification.”
― Elspeth Barker, O Caledonia

“She recognized in herself a distaste for people, which was both physical and intellectual; and yet she nurtured a shameful, secret desire for popularity, or at least for acceptance, neither of which came her way.”
― Elspeth Barker, O Caledonia