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"Fanny saw and pitied much of this in Julia; but there was no outward fellowship between them. Julia made no communication, and Fanny took no liberties. They were two solitary sufferers, or connected only by Fanny's consciousness."

"To this nest of comforts Fanny now walked down to try its influence on an agitated, doubting spirit—to see if . . . by giving air to her geraniums she might inhale a breeze of mental strength herself."

"It's a vertiginous thing to be harangued on social media about your alleged misunderstanding of your own ideas—while being told that another Naomi is a better version of you than you are."

"There was a charm, perhaps, in his sincerity, his steadiness, his integrity, which Miss Crawford might be equal to feel, though not equal to discuss with herself. She did not think very much about it, however; he pleased her for the present; she liked to have him near her; it was enough."

"'If it is necessary, every Negro in the state will be lynched,' the governor of Mississippi pledged in 1903 . . . By one estimate, someone in the South was hanged or burned alive every four days."

"He too was much distressed, and they sat down together in a most promising state of embarrassment."

"But while the imaginations of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance."

"'How does it feel to be a problem?' W. E. B. Du Bois asked, the year after Plessy v. Ferguson established the doctrine of separate but equal. 'One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.'"

"There was a kind of cold hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanour, and a general want of understanding."

"Elinor was employed in walking thoughtfully from the fire to the window, from the window to the fire, without knowing that she received warmth from one, or discerning objects through the other . . ."

"Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion; and upon Elinor therefore the whole task of telling lies when politeness required it, always fell."

"The business of self-command she settled very easily;—with strong affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could have no merit. That her sister's affections were calm, she dared not deny, though she blushed to acknowledge it; and of the strength of her own, she gave a very striking proof, by still loving and respecting that sister, in spite of this mortifying conviction."

". . . [T]here is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions."

"Margaret fancied that he could not be well; but in answer to some enquiry of hers as to his health, he sent her a short note, saying there was an old-fashioned complaint called the spleen . . . but that he should like to indulge himself in grumbling, without being obliged to send a bulletin every time."

". . . [W]hen [Scrooge] thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed."

"They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again."

". . . [S]he might be unhappy if she liked. For months past, all her personal cares and troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark cupboard; but now she had leisure to take them out, and mourn over them, and study their nature, and seek the true method of subduing them into the elements of peace . . . Now, once for all she would consider them, and appoint to each of them its right work in her life."

2/2: "'Some time, if I live to be an old woman, I may sit over the fire, and, looking into the embers, see the life that might have been,' . . . She went out, going rapidly towards the country, and trying to drown reflection by swiftness of motion."

1/2: "'What has happened to make me so morbid to-day? I do not know. I only know I cannot help it. I must give way sometimes. No, I will not though . . . I will not think of myself and my own position. I will not examine into my own feelings. It would be of no use now . . .'"

2/2: "Courthouses provided separate Bibles. Bars provided separate stools. Post offices mandated separate windows. Playgrounds had separate swings. In Birmingham, for a black child to play checkers with a white child in a public park became a crime. Slavery had ended; segregation had only begun."

1/2: "Political equality had been possible, in the South, only at the barrel of a gun. As soon as federal troops withdrew . . . the era of black men's enfranchisement came to a violent and terrible end . . . All-white legislatures began passing . . . Jim Crow laws, that segregated blacks from whites in every conceivable public place . . ."

"I reckon . . . by-and-by they'll find out, tyrants makes liars."

"Miss Hale might love another—was indifferent and contemptuous to him—but he would yet do her faithful acts of service of which she should never know. He might despise her, but the woman whom he had once loved should be kept from shame; and shame it would be . . . to stand and acknowledge her reason for desiring darkness rather than light."