β
She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
Good women are no fun... The only good woman I can recall in history was Betsy Ross. And all she ever made was a flag.
β
β
Mae West
β
It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy-Tacy and Tib (Betsy-Tacy, #2))
β
Isn't it mysterious to begin a new journal like this? I can run my fingers through the fresh clean pages but I cannot guess what the writing on them will be.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy in Spite of Herself (Betsy-Tacy, #6))
β
Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
Hell couldn't be worse than a WalMart after midnight, right?
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unwed (Undead, #1))
β
Then he kissed her. Betsy didn't believe in letting boys kiss you. She thought it was silly to be letting first this boy and then that one kiss you, when it didn't mean a thing. But it was wonderful when Joe Willard kissed her. And it did mean a thing.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Joe (Betsy-Tacy, #8))
β
With the spread of conformity and image-driven superficiality, the allure of an individuated woman in full possession of herself and her powers will prove irresistible. We were born for plenitude and inner fulfillment.
β
β
Elizabeth Prioleau (Seductress - Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love)
β
She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, 'I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live?
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Joe (Betsy-Tacy, #8))
β
He snarled at me. "This isn't over yet, Betsy."
"Excellent," I said. "I would also have accepted 'You haven't seen the last of me' and 'You'll regret this'.
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unappreciated (Undead, #3))
β
Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and the Great World (Betsy-Tacy, #9))
β
In silence the three of them looked at the sunset and thought about God.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy-Tacy and Tib (Betsy-Tacy, #2))
β
We wait for God to bless us while God waits for us to accept the blessing.
β
β
Betsy Otter Thompson (Walking Through Illusion)
β
I hadn't been able to trust since the age of four. I was torn between wanting to be cradled and telling the world to go fuck itself, and those were opposite sides of the same coin.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (Food and Loathing: A Life Measured Out in Calories)
Corrie ten Boom (The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom)
β
When I type a title page, I hold it and I look at it and I think, I just need four thousand sentences to go with this and Iβll have a book.
β
β
Betsy Byars (The Moon and I)
β
Nothing was a more powerful compass of my mood or a better indication of my self-worth than the number on the scale.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (Food and Loathing: A Life Measured Out in Calories)
β
The wastes of snow on the hill were ghostly in the moonlight. The stars were piercingly bright.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
Because a cage is still a cage, no matter how big or glittering the bars are.
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers, #1))
β
What would life be like without her writing? Writing filled her life with beauty and mystery, gave it life...and promise.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Heaven to Betsy (Betsy-Tacy, #5))
β
Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding (Betsy-Tacy #9-10))
β
Betsy. The great war is on but I hope ours is over. Please come home. Joe.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and the Great World (Betsy-Tacy, #9))
β
They soon stopped being ten years old. But whatever age they were seemed to be exactly the right age for having fun.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill (Betsy-Tacy, #3))
β
Say, you told me you thought Les Miserables was the greatest novel ever written. I think Vanity Fair is the greatest. Let's fight. - Joe Willard
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Joe (Betsy-Tacy, #8))
β
You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Heaven to Betsy (Betsy-Tacy, #5))
β
You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It's the beginning of growing up.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill (Betsy-Tacy, #3))
β
Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more.
β
β
Edward Abbey (Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast)
β
Our lives can hold just so much. If they're filled with one thing, they can't be filled with another. We ought to do a lot of thinking about what we want to fill them with.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy Was a Junior (Betsy-Tacy, #7))
β
And yet, even as she spoke, she knew that she did not wish to come back. not to stay, not to live. She loved the little yellow cottage more than she loved any place on earth. but she was through with it except in her memories.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Heaven to Betsy (Betsy-Tacy, #5))
β
The most important part of religion isn't in any church. It's down in your own heart. Religion is in your thoughts, and in the way you act from day to day, in the way you treat other people. It's honesty, and unselfishness, and kindness. Especially kindness.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Heaven to Betsy (Betsy-Tacy, #5))
β
When there are boys you have to worry about how you look, and whether they like you, and why they like another girl better, and whether they're going to ask you to something or other. It's a strain.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy in Spite of Herself (Betsy-Tacy, #6))
β
He flipped his spiked tail straight into the air in what could only be interpreted as an obscene gesture.
Rexi duplicated it in human form. βRight back atcha.
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers, #1))
β
I had officially joined the cacophony of sick mother fuckers.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (Food and Loathing: A Life Measured Out in Calories)
β
Elizabeth Anne Taylor
April 25, 1974 - April 25, 2004
Our Sweetheart, Only resting
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unreturnable (Undead, #4))
β
It's the colors that will make you stray. They sing to you, the not-blue and the searing light, and no matter how tightly you tie yourself to the inbetween, eventually you will break free.
No one swims only in the shallow water.
β
β
Betsy Cornwell (Tides)
β
It's nice to see you again, Laura."
"Thank you, Mrs. T-"
"No, no, no. Please, my name is-"
"Mud," I suggested. "Mud Barfbag Taylor. Call her Asshat for short."
~Laura, Antonia, Betsy
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unfinished (Undead, #9))
β
It was as if her life was a huge kaleidoscope, and the kaleidoscope had been turned and now everything was changed. The same stones shaken, no longer made the same design.
β
β
Betsy Byars (The Summer of the Swans)
β
Those of us who embrace the feminine know its strength.
β
β
Betsy Cornwell
β
I was so furious I was actually dizzy with it. There were so many bitchy, sarcastic observations to make, I was having a sarcasm stroke. "My God! You people! You're - you're so stupid you're making my eyeballs throb. They're throbbing, dammit!
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unfinished (Undead, #9))
β
Also,I loathe it when you refer to me as dude" Eric Sinclair to Betsy
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unfinished (Undead, #9))
β
Just remember that this relationship is based on mutual trust and respect, so never reveal your true self.
β
β
Betsy Lerner
β
Do you girls have hope chests?' Lloyd asked.
We certainly do.'
I don't,' said Betsy. 'My husband and I are going to use paper plates and napkins.'
Poor Joe!'
Lucky Larry!
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (The Betsy-Tacy Treasury (Betsy-Tacy, #1β4))
β
Rule #17: To rescue a princess from magical imprisonment, a handsome prince must first slay the dragon. If one is not available, a large iguana will do in a pinch.β
βDefinitive Fairy-Tale Survival Guide, Volume 1
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers, #1))
β
The silence in the room had width, height, depth, mass and substance.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy in Spite of Herself (Betsy-Tacy, #6))
β
...but every person who does serious time with a keyboard is attempting to translate his version of the world into words so that he might be understood.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (The Forest for the Trees)
β
You don't grow up, she reasoned now, until you begin to evaluate yourself, to recognize your good traits and acknowledge that you have a few faults.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Joe (Betsy-Tacy, #8))
β
Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess, they all went together to find a bird's nest...
β
β
Shirley Jackson (The Bird's Nest)
β
...American history can be told and retold, claimed and reclaimed, even by people who don't look like George Washington and Betsy Ross.
β
β
Jeremy McCarter (Hamilton: The Revolution)
β
Everything was a broken line for me in those days. I was slipped into the empty spaces between words.
β
β
Betsy Cornwell (Mechanica (Mechanica, #1))
β
Betsy liked to talk. Her father always said she got it from her mother, and her mother always said she got it from her father. But whomever she got it from she was certainly a talker.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
One strain could call up the quivering expectancy of Christmas Eve, childhood, joy and sadness, the lonely wonder of a star
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy Was a Junior (Betsy-Tacy, #7))
β
So you say. I just hope you donβt catch some exotic dinosaur ailment because Eustis probably doesnβt stock the right pills to treat it.
β
β
Ed Lynskey (Sweet Betsy (Isabel & Alma Trumbo #5))
β
Where once I prayed for forgiveness from a father God who held up huge palms and said βThou shalt not,β now I find peace with a sister god who takes my open hands in hers and says, βYou will.
β
β
Betsy Cornwell
β
Did vampirism encourage Stockholm syndrome?
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unwed (Undead, #1))
β
When you really love someone, you think about him all the time. No matter where you are or what you're doing, he never completely leaves your thoughts. When you're apart, you want to be with him. When you're together, you're conscious of every move he makes, every word he says, and every breath he takes. Just the sight of him makes your heart rae and your mouth go dry. And when he touches you, the rest of the world disappears.
β
β
Betsy Brannon Green (Hearts in Hiding (Haggerty Mystery, #1))
β
I slipped one of the shoes off, looked at the inside. Property of Antonia O'Neill Taylor. I knew it. My stepmother! The bitch meant to bury me wearing her cast off shoes!
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unwed (Undead, #1))
β
I know it's practical for career women, but sneakers with suits? Jesus couldn't possibly weep harder than I did.
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unpopular (Undead, #5))
β
This was Betsy and Tacy's private corner. Betsy's mother was a great believer in people having private corners, and the piano box was plainly meant to belong to Betsy and Tacy, for it fitted them so snugly.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy-Tacy (Betsy-Tacy, #1))
β
Isabel frowned. βAlma Trumbo, you did not just dig up a human bone from our flowerbed. Itβs got to be a dinosaur bone, dinky or not.β
βA dinosaur bone, eh?β The short, stout Alma gave her tall, slim sister the old up and down. βWhat then, are we the Flintstones living in Bedrock?
β
β
Ed Lynskey (Sweet Betsy (Isabel & Alma Trumbo #5))
β
It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, a former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there β the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. βHow grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.β He said. βTo think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!β His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggles to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
β
β
Corrie ten Boom
β
Fifteen minutes later, Betsy came thundering down the stairs. "I'm going to the mall with Sierra to see a movie."
Michael leaned forward, switched off the television. "Can you please rephrase that in the form of a question?"
"Sure. Can I have some money?
β
β
Kristin Hannah (Home Front)
β
Childrenβs and YA books are about being brave and kind, about learning wisdom and love, about that journey into and through maturity that we all keep starting, and starting again, no matter how old we get. I think thatβs why so many adults read YA: weβre never done coming of age.
β
β
Betsy Cornwell
β
Muster your wits; stand in your own defence...
β
β
William Shakespeare
β
Itβs the twenty-first century; no one goes by Betsy anymore,β Tom said. βBut even if they did, thereβs usually context. If youβre saying, βBetsy has the results from the lab,β itβs probably the human. If itβs βBetsy just got pissed off and burned down twenty thousand acres of jungle,β itβs probably the kaiju.
β
β
John Scalzi (The Kaiju Preservation Society)
β
The older I get the more mixed up life seems. When you're little, it's all so plain. It's all laid out like a game ready to play. You think you know exactly how it's going to go. But things happen...
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Joe (Betsy-Tacy, #8))
β
Childhood is the time and children's books are the place for powerful emotions, powerful language, powerful art... There is no room for cutesy books, dull books, or books that talk down. Children are not inferior. They may be small in stature but not in what they feel, think, listen, and see.
β
β
Betsy Hearne
β
I've got to stop thinking about myself so much--about how I look, how I'm impressing someone, whether I'm popular or not. I've got to start thinking about other people, all the people I meet.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Joe (Betsy-Tacy, #8))
β
[I]t's the child writer who has figured out, early on, that writing is about saving your soul.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (The Forest for the Trees)
β
Girl of Emerald, no man can tame. Burn down the world, consumed by flames.
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers, #1))
β
You never know what you're gonna find under those covers - Grandma or the wolf." Little Red, excerpt from Tales From the Hood
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers, #1))
β
But unlike sirens, selkies don't mean any harm with their songs. They don't sing to seduce or to kill. Their songs have nothing to do with anyone but themselves. They sing for the simple joy of it, and because of that, I imagine their songs are more beautiful than those of any siren.
β
β
Betsy Cornwell (Tides)
β
Poor little old human beings β theyβre jerked into this world without having any idea where they came from or what it is they are supposed to do, or how long they have to do it in. Or where they are gonna wind up after that. But bless their hearts, most of them wake up every morning and keep on trying to make some sense out of it. Why, you canβt help but love them, can you? I just wonder why more of them arenβt as crazy as betsy bugs. β
Aunt Elner, 1978
β
β
Fannie Flagg (Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (Elmwood Springs, #1))
β
Thank you," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for-"
The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."
"Give thanks in all circumstances," she quoted. "It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."
And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.
β
β
Corrie ten Boom (The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom)
β
No need to panic. I was the heroine in this story, so everything would get fixed somehow.
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers, #1))
β
Cats, I decided, had certain advantages over men. There were loyal without being sycophantic, independent without being absent, and affectionate without being rapacious. That they choke up balls of fur and leave dead rodents at my feet is unfortunate. But it is not grounds for divorce.
β
β
Betsy Tobin (Ice Land)
β
I have cried over myself a hundred times this summer, she thought, I have wept over my big feet and my skinny legs and my nose, I have even cried over my stupid shoes, and now when I have true sadness there are no tears left.
β
β
Betsy Byars (The Summer of the Swans)
β
As an inmate of a concentration camp, Corrie Ten Boom heard a commotion, and saw a short distance away a prison guard mercilessly beating a female prisoner. βWhat can we do for these people?β Corrie whispered. βShow them that love is greater,β Betsie replied. In that moment, Corrie realized her sisterβs focus was on the prison guard, not the victim she was watching. Betsie saw the world through a different lens. She considered the actions of greatest moral gravity to be the ones we originate, not the ones we suffer.
β
β
Terryl L. Givens (The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life)
β
Betsy was so full of joy that she had to be alone. She went upstairs to her bedroom and sat down on Uncle Keith's trunk. Behind Tacy's house the sun had set. A wind had sprung up and the trees, their color dimmed, moved under a brooding sky. All the stories she had told Tacy and Tib seemed to be dancing in those trees, along with all the stories she planned to write some day and all the stories she would read at the library. Good stories. Great stories. The classics. Not Rena's novels.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
It was a miracle to me, this transformation of my acorns into an oak.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (The Forest for the Trees)
β
We're growing up," Betsy said aloud. She wasn't even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it was irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except to try and see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be.
"I'd like to be a fine one," Betsy thought quickly and urgently.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy Was a Junior / Betsy and Joe (Betsy-Tacy #7-8))
β
Betsy hadn't had sex, actual; sex-sex, full sex, in two hundred and fifty-three days. She decided on her thirty-seventh birthday that she wouldn't sleep with anyone unless it was in the context of a committed relationship which had some sort of future, and she was only gradually coming to the realization of what happens when a woman her age makes a decision like that: she never has sex again.
β
β
Sarah Dunn (Secrets to Happiness)
β
The world doesn't fully make sense until the writer has secured his version of it on the page. And the act of writing is strangely more lifelike than life.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (The Forest for the Trees)
β
We'll just have to find more flowers in the spring. That's when they bloom, tra la.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy Was a Junior (Betsy-Tacy, #7))
β
An ill-worded wish is worse than a curse...
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers, #1))
β
It looks like something out of Whittier's "Snowbound,"' Julia said. Julia could always think of things like that to say.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
Why is it suddenly uncool to spell? That's all I want to know.
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Undermined (Undead, #10))
β
When your heart is broken, itβs easier to follow rules
β
β
Betsy Cornwell (Mechanica (Mechanica, #1))
β
True love is like a stalactite meeting a stalagmite. Complete opposites, but with time, calcium, and a healthy drip system, they meet in the middle. Or one crushes the other. It really depends.
β
β
Betsy Schow (Spelled (The Storymakers #1))
β
Why do you need that thing?" September asked. "None of the airports back home have them."
"They do. You just can't see them right," Betsy Basilstalk said with a grin. "All customs agents have them, otherwise, why would people agree to stand in line and be peered at and inspected? We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say, lines on maps are silly. Where you live, the awful machinery is smaller, harder to see. Less honest, that's all. Whereas Rupert here? He's as honest as they come. Does what it says on the box.
β
β
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
β
I was already at one remove before the Internet came along. I need another remove? Now I have to spend the time that I'm not doing the thing they're doing reading about them doing it? Streaming the clips of them doing it, commenting on how lucky they are to be doing all those things, liking and digging and bookmarking and posting and tweeting all those things, and feeling more disconnected than ever? Where does this idea of greater connection come from? I've never in my life felt more disconnected. It's like how the rich get richer. The connected get more connected while the disconnected get more disconnected. No thanks man, I can't do it. The world was a sufficient trial, Betsy, before Facebook.
β
β
Joshua Ferris (To Rise Again at a Decent Hour)
β
My soul lightened as I realized I could help her. I rolled her body flat, like Grandpa taught me. I swept my finger inside her cold mouth to make sure her breathing passage was open, and I placed my mouth on hers, carefully pinching her nose, and breathed life into her lungs.
Betsy stirred, sputtered a cough, and opened her eyes.
βNow you kiss me?β she said, so weakly I could barely hear her.
β
β
Darin C. Brown (The Taste of Despair (The Master of Perceptions, #3))
β
Dad on Child-rearing: "There's no education superior to travel. Think of The Motorcycle Diaries, or what Montrose St. Millet wrote in Ages of Exploration: 'To be still is to be stupid. To be stupid is to die.' And so we shall live. Every Betsy sitting next to you in a classroom will only know Maple Street on which sits her boxy white house, inside of which whimper her boxy white parents. After your travels, you'll know Maple Street, sure, but also wilderness and ruins, carnivals and the moon. You'll know the man sitting on an apple crate outside a gas station in Cheerless, Texas, who lost his legs in Vietnam, the woman in the tollboth outside Dismal, Delaware, in possession of six children, a husband with black lung but no teeth. When a teacher asks the class to interpret Paradise Lost, no one will be able to grab your coattails, sweet, for you will be flying far, far out in front of them all. For them, you will be a speck somewhere above the horizon. And thus, when you're ultimately set loose upon the world..." He shrugged, his smile lazy as an old dog. "I suspect you'll have no choice but to go down in history.
β
β
Marisha Pessl (Special Topics in Calamity Physics)
β
When an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money. It other words, the stuff of great books.
β
β
Betsy Lerner (The Forest for the Trees)
β
Well, Betsy," he said, "your mother tells me that you are going to use Uncle Keith's trunk for a desk. That's fine. You need a desk. I've often noticed how much you like to write. The way you eat up those advertising tablets from the store! I never saw anything like it. I can't understand it though. I never write anything but checks myself. "
"Bob!" said Mrs. Ray. "You wrote the most wonderful letters to me before we were married. I still have them, a big bundle of them. Every time I clean house I read them over and cry."
"Cry, eh?" said Mr. Ray, grinning. "In spite of what your mother says, Betsy, if you have any talent for writing, it comes from family. Her brother Keith was mighty talented, and maybe you are too. Maybe you're going to be a writer."
Betsy was silent, agreeably abashed.
"But if you're going to be a writer," he went on, "you've got to read. Good books. Great books. The classics.
β
β
Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Betsy-Tacy, #4))
β
You may stay. But Jessica, please watch what you say and do. Don't look them in the eyes for long. Speak only when spoken to. Yes, sir; yes, ma'am."
"Sit up. Arf," I teased.
"What about her?" Jessica cried, pointing in my general direction. "She's more in need of an etiquette lesson than I am."
"Yeah," I said, "but I'm the Queen. With a capital fucking Q. Hey, you're looking me in the eyes for too long! Eric, make her stop!
β
β
MaryJanice Davidson (Undead and Unpopular (Undead, #5))
β
An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. ....The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney, therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow fell into a lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair and came out looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown's decided "Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive, But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once."
Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel.I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in London?
β
β
Elizabeth Gaskell (Cranford)
β
Aaron opened his mouth, closed it again, and fixed Nicky with an annoyed look. "You're explaining this to Andrew when he gets back." "Oh, hell no," Nicky said, and jerked a thumb at Neil. "I'mma leave that one to him. Thanks for taking one for the team, Neil. You're a real friend." Nicky grinned over at Neil, but his amusement didn't last. He seemed confused by whatever he saw on Neil's face and backpedaled with, "Don't worry, we'll send Renee along with you for backup. Last I checked Andrew only wins half their fights, so you might actually survive. Uh. Neil?" He should just let it go, or at least leave it to think about later, but Neil couldn't resist. "Are we?" he asked, because hadn't Betsy said it just a few days ago? He hadn't understood it then and hadn't even tried, too angry and upset over everything else that was happening. Tonight it almost meant something, though what, Neil didn't know. Realizing Nicky couldn't follow his twisting train of thought, Neil forced himself to say, "Friends?" It was like that one word punched all the joy out of Nicky, but the look that crossed Nicky's face next was too fast for Neil to decipher. Nicky's smile was back a second later, but it didn't reach his eyes. Neil might have apologized, except Nicky reached out and scrubbed a gloved hand through Neil's hair. "You are going to be the absolute death of me," Nicky said. "Yeah, kid. We're friends. You're stuck with us, like it or not.
β
β
Nora Sakavic (The Raven King (All for the Game, #2))
β
Shirt off.β
Neil stared at her. βWhy?β
βI canβt check track marks through cotton, Neil.β
βI donβt do drugs.β
βGood on you,β Abby said. βKeep it that way. Now take it off.β
[β¦] βI want to make this as painless as possible, but I canβt help you if you canβt help me. Tell me why you wonβt take off your shirt.β
Neil looked for a delicate way to say it. The best he managed was, βIβm not okay.β
She put a finger to his chin and turned his face back toward her. βNeil, I work for the Foxes. None of you are okay. Chances are Iβve seen a lot worse than whatever it is youβre trying to hide from me.β
Neilβs smile was humorless. βI hope not.
βTrust me,β Abby said. βIβm not going to judge you. Iβm here to help, remember? Iβm your nurse now. That door is closed, and it comes with a lock. What happens in here stays in here.β
[β¦] βYou canβt ask me about them,β he said at last. βI wonβt talk to you about it. Okay?β
βOkay,β Abby agreed easily. βBut know that when you want to, Iβm here, and so is Betsy.β
Neil wasnβt going to tell that psychiatrist a thing, but he nodded. Abby dropped her hand and Neil pulled his shirt over his head before he could lose his nerve.
Abby thought she was ready. Neil knew she wouldnβt be, and he was right. Her mouth parted on a silent breath and her expression went blank. She wasnβt fast enough to hide her flinch, and Neil saw her shoulders go rigid with tension. He stared at her face as she stared at him, watching her gaze sweep over the brutal marks of a hideous childhood.
It started at the base of his throat, a looping scar curving down over his collarbone. A pucker with jagged edges was a finger-width away, courtesy of a bullet that hit him right on the edge of his Kevlar vest. A shapeless patch of pale skin from his left shoulder to his navel marked where heβd jumped out of a moving car and torn himself raw on the asphalt. Faded scars crisscrossed here and there from his life on the run, either from stupid accidents, desperate escapes, or conflicts with local lowlifes. Along his abdomen were larger overlapping lines from confrontations with his fatherβs people while on the run. His father wasnβt called the butcher for nothing; his weapon of choice was a cleaver. All of his men were well-versed in knife-fighting, and more than one of them had tried to stick Neil like a pig.
And there on his right shoulder was the perfect outline of half a hot iron. Neil didnβt remember what heβs said or done to irritate his father so much.
β
β
Nora Sakavic (The Foxhole Court (All for the Game, #1))
β
One," said the recording secretary.
"Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly.
There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't behave to suit him.
"Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause.
Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids."
Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while father held fast to his lip.
"Three," called the secretary hurriedly.
Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her next door neighbour in five years.
"Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love covereth all sins."
Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap.
"Four."
The mild blue eyes travelled back to the men's side and settled on Isaac Thomas, a man too lazy to plow and sow land his father had left him. They were not so mild, and the voice was touched with command: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise."
Still that silence.
"Five," said the secretary hurriedly, as if he wished it were over. Back came the eyes to the women's side and past all question looked straight at Hannah Dover.
"As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion."
"Six," said the secretary and looked appealingly at father, whose face was filled with dismay.
Again Leon's eyes crossed the aisle and he looked directly at the man whom everybody in the community called "Stiff-necked Johnny."
I think he was rather proud of it, he worked so hard to keep them doing it.
"Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck," Leon commanded him.
Toward the door some one tittered.
"Seven," called the secretary hastily.
Leon glanced around the room.
"But how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," he announced in delighted tones as if he had found it out by himself.
"Eight," called the secretary with something like a breath of relief.
Our angel boy never had looked so angelic, and he was beaming on the Princess.
"Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," he told her.
Laddie would thrash him for that.
Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?"
More than one giggled that time.
"Ten!" came almost sharply.
Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver. Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly."
"Eleven."
Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!"
Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook.
"Twelve."
Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused.
"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning.
"Thirteen."
"The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?" inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.
β
β
Gene Stratton-Porter (Laddie: A True Blue Story (Library of Indiana Classics))