Lady Willpower

“Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now—over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect?”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April

“And now, dear reader, the story is over. It is time for you to cross the bridge once more and return to the world you came from. This river, which is and is not the Thames, must continue flowing without you. You have haunted here long enough, and besides, you surely have rivers of your own to attend to?”
― Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

“He put everything back in his haversack, but he didn't know what to do with the things from the past. He had no idea where you were supposed to put things that existed only inside your head.”
― Rachel Joyce, Miss Benson's Beetle

“Besides she had been raised in a house of women whose skill at not saying a difficult thing verged on professional. The truth had become such an elusive entity, she could as easily talk about her feelings as ride a mule.”
― Rachel Joyce, Miss Benson's Beetle