Laura

“Reading, she now understood, had been her own choice of rebellion. A most private activity, it was the perfect alibi for a young woman in a demanding household like theirs.”
― Natalie Jenner, The Jane Austen Society

“Jane Austen knew about money and power, too, Mimi reminded herself, in the specialness of her surroundings that night. Austin saw what lack of money meant for the women in her life, and this consuming fear was what was telegraphed most loudly in all her books, hidden behind the much more palatable workings of the marriage plot. Austin knew that no amount of charity or largesse from their male relatives could ever grant women real independence. Yet, through her genius - - a genius no amount of money or power could buy because it was all inside her head, completely her own - - she had accrued some small degree of autonomy by the end. Enough to work, live, and die on her own terms. It really was a most remarkable achievement, the legacy of those six books, revised and spurred on and cast soley by her own two hands, with no man with inevitably more power or money getting in the way.”
― Natalie Jenner, The Jane Austen Society

“People said that everyone was born alone and everyone would die alone, but they were wrong. When someone was born, they brought so many people with them, generations of people zipped into the marrow of their tiny bones.”
― Emma Straub, All Adults Here

“It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”
― L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages