Kristen Murray

“As Anne grew, so did her ambition to travel. Her dream destinations became further flung and more exotic. It did not satisfy her to leave England for a week or two; throughout her adult life she spent months at a time away from home, including periods of residence in Paris. Having also explored Italy, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, in the summer of 1833 Scandinavia and the Baltics were in Anne’s sights. After months of indecision, she finally ‘determined to go north’ on 17th July that year, resolving to end her journey in Denmark.”
― Anne Choma, Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister

“She took the fork. “Thank you,” she said, solemn. “All good weapons deserve a name,” said Tornac. “Especially magical ones. What would you call this one?” Essie thought for a second and then said, “Mister Stabby!”
― Christopher Paolini, The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm: Eragon

“Sometimes plans must change, my love.”
― Molly Knox Ostertag, The Girl from the Sea

“Capable, clever and with a natural gift for land and estate management, Anne had been the natural choice to take on the huge task of running Shibden. Not only had she impressed Uncle James with her abilities to deal with the renewal of leases and misbehaving tenants, he also knew that she would never marry and therefore the estate would not be broken up. In their conversations together, Anne had left him under no illusion that her emotional and sexual feelings for other women precluded the possibility of her ever entering into a marriage with a man, in which she stood to lose all that was hers. It was another four decades, on the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act in 1870 (thirty years after Anne’s death), before women would be able to keep hold of and inherit property following marriage. So, remarkable as it may seem to us now, it was Anne Lister’s lesbian sexuality (then with no name or legal recognition), which played a crucial role in helping her to keep control of her wealth at a time when it was thought that it was impossible for a woman to do so. That Uncle James, in 1826, seemed to understand and recognise this is even more extraordinary.”
― Sally Wainwright, Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister