Kristen Murray

“He ran his fingers back and forth over the broad crown of the head of a coon dog named Sounder.”
― William H. Armstrong, Sounder

“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

“After a moment, she felt Tornac pull her sleeve back down, and he said, "That... is a very impressive scar. You should be proud of it."
Confused, she looked back at him. "Why? It's ugly, and I hate it."
A faint smile played around the corners of his lips. "Because a scar means you survived. It means you're tough and hard to kill. It means you lived. A scar is something to admire.”
― Christopher Paolini, The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm: Eragon

“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women