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“Take the matter as you find it ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek because the nerves are martyrised; do not doubt that your mental stomach - if you have such a thing - is strong as an ostrich's; the stone will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.”
― Kate Atkinson, Case Histories

“La rutina no está tanto en las cosas como en nuestra incapacidad para crear a cada momento un vínculo original con ellas, en nuestra tendencia a leerlas por la falsilla de lo rutinario, de lo ya aprendido. Hay que seguir dejando siempre abierta la puerta al cuarto de jugar.”
― Carmen Martín Gaite, El cuento de nunca acabar

“My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 1836-1854