Bonnie

“I always pity the bridegroom on these occasions. The bride is supported by her father, and attended by her bridesmaids, and everybody is or pretends to be in a fright, lest she should faint or cry; and she has all the protection of a veil in case she should be too shy or not shy enough; and there is a general sympathy in her feelings. The poor man has to walk himself up alone to the altar, where he stands, looking uncommonly foolish, without even the protection of his hat. There is the mother sobbing at him for carrying off her child; the sisters scowling at him because he did not choose one of them; the clergyman frowning at him for not producing the ring at the right moment, or for neglecting the responses in their proper places; the brothers laugh at him; the bride turns from him; and the only person who pays him the slightest attention is the clerk, who tells him when he is to kneel, and when to stand, and which is his right hand, and which his left, and helps him to the discovery of his waistcoat pocket, in which the ring may or may not be.”
― Emily Eden, The Semi-Attached Couple

“Here in the US we used to go on about our "First World problems." Nobody's pretending folks wouldn't be worse off if a storm like Luna had made landfall in Dhaka or Lagos. But the point is, it hit here, twice in ten days. And when the choice is between nothing and something, most folks will settle for a tent and three squares any day. Situation like that, your so-called First World gets real small, real fast.”
― Bruce Holsinger, The Displacements

“Though I myself have come to this safe harbour – if safety can be found in this life – yet I mourn my former simple days. I have lost my Innocence, in more ways than one. I have seen the gears and furious machinery of the world that lies unreckoned beneath our feet. No longer can I note, as other men do, the passing hours upon the heavens' gilded face, without a vision of a hidden master-spring uncoiling to its final silence. I await the day when all clocks shall stop, including the one that ticks within my breast. Do thou the same, Reader, and profit from my example.”
― K.W. Jeter, Infernal Devices

“Some kids really don’t have much Me at all. They truly are part of the group. But a lot of them just act—pretend—the way I tried to. Their heart isn’t really in the groups, but still they get along, they get by. I wish I could. I honestly wish I could be a good hypocrite. It doesn’t hurt anybody, and it sure makes life easier. But I never could fool anybody. They knew I wasn’t interested in what interested them, and they despised me for it, and I despised them for despising me. But then I also despised the few kids who didn’t try to go along.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Very Far Away from Anywhere Else