Michael Dennis

“She would have been noted for her spontaneity and liveliness of mind if she had been given any kind of education.... Mme de Renal had had enough sense to reject as absurd everything she had learnt at the convent, and to forget it pretty rapidly; but she did not replace it with anything, and ended up totally ignorant.”
― Stendahl, The Red and the Black

“It may be taken as axiomatic that any statement of fact about the Middle Ages may (and probably will) be met by a statement of the opposite or a different version. Women outnumbered men because men were killed off in the wars; men outnumbered women because women died in childbirth. Common people were familiar with the Bible; common people were unfamiliar with the Bible. Nobles were tax exempt; no, they were not tax exempt. French peasants were filthy and foul-smelling and lived on bread and onions; French peasants ate pork, fowl, and game and enjoyed baths in the village bathhouses. The list could be extended indefinitely.”
― Barbara Tuchman

“And Mr. Knightley always wanted us to be friends!"

"Yes, and if we had been we should have changed each other's lives."

...."Now we shall never have the chance; it it too late."

And Emma said with equal sadness: "Yes, that is true. But at least we have stopped being enemies.”
― Joan Aiken, Jane Fairfax

“Men shut their doors against a setting sun.”
― William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens