Mina

“Children of course are monstrously conventional, repelled at once by whatever is off-center, out of whack, unmanageable. And being an only child I had been coddled a good deal (also scolded). I was awkward, precocious, timid, full of my private rituals and aversions.”
― Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness: Stories

“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.”
― Will Durant, The Lessons of History

“She had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of time and chance, except perhaps fair play”
― Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge