Ina

“Too many of us take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little further and seen why it is so. It is because women are never lazy. They don’t know what it is to be quiet. They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation. If they can’t agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they’ll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills; and social storms in household teacups. Forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and they’ll quarrel with Mrs Jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant. To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the nosier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex.”
― Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret

“Crucibles burn away the dross... Sometimes, I fancy that’s what has happened to me.”

She studied his face. “How do you mean?”

“All of this... I lost faith. I lost heart.” His eyes met hers with rueful humor. “I lost you.”

Ann stilled. Her breath caught in her throat as he reached to brush a stray curl of hair from her temple. He tucked it back into the confines of her black bonnet.

“I suppose that sometimes you have to be put into the fire to realize what’s truly important to you,” he said. “It burns everything else away. Melts you down to your finest parts. in the end, all that was left of me were my responsibilities-- and my love for you.”
― Mimi Matthews, The Lily of Ludgate Hill

“O God, I love you to the edge of madness, Venetia, but I'm not mad yet--not so mad that I don't know how disastrous it might be to you--to us both! You don't realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence!”
― Georgette Heyer, Venetia