Victoria

“When I was a girl . . . I imagined that life was individual, one's own affair; that the events happening in the world outside were important enough in their own way, but were personally quite irrelevant. Now, like the rest of my generation, I have had to learn again and again the terrible truth . . . that no life is really private, or isolated, or self-sufficient. People's lives were entirely their own, perhaps--and more justifiably--when the world seemed enormous, and all its comings and goings were slow and deliberate. But this is so no longer, and never will be again, since man's inventions have eliminated so much of distance and time; for better, for worse, we are now each of us part of the surge and swell of great economic and political movements, and whatever we do, as individuals or as nations, deeply affects everyone else.”
― Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth

“And one day she said to me, 'For the rest of my life, it's the first thing they'll say about me when I leave the room.' And I remember thinking: Yes that's true, it will be. But we can't really do anything about what they say when we leave the room. We'll never be able to control that. And we shouldn't try. Our job is just to...well, be in the room while we're there, and try not to think too much about where we're not. Whatever room we happen to be in, just, be there.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, You Should Have Known

“History will remember this," she says. "I do not need to.”
― Michelle Moran, Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

“Daddy thinks history starts fresh every day, every minute, that time itself begins with the feelings he’s having right now. That’s how he keeps betraying us, why he roars at us with such conviction. We have to stand up to that, and say, at least to ourselves, that what he’s done before is still with us, still right here in this room until there’s true remorse.”
― Jane Smiley