“
We'll all grow up someday, Meg, we might as well know what we want.
~Amy March~
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
When Jo's conservative sister Meg says she must turn up her hair now that she is a "young lady," Jo shouts, "I'm not! and if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty.... I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It's bad enough to be a girl anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
Jo March : I can't believe childhood is over.
Meg March : It was going to end one way or another. And what a happy end.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
I'm still not Meg March or Jane Bennet. I'll always be a Jo or a Lizzie, no matter what kind of dress I wear or how I style my hair. But that's okay, because for once, I feel like the heroine of my own story. It's taken pretending to be someone else to make me realize who I actually am.
”
”
Teri Wilson (The Accidental Beauty Queen)
“
Ember vigyázz, figyeld meg jól világod:
ez volt a múlt, emez a vad jelen,-
hordozd szivedben. Éld e rossz világot
és mindig tudd, hogy mit kell tenned érte,
hogy más legyen.
”
”
Miklós Radnóti (Forced March)
“
Fine,' I grumbled. 'Maybe the Arrow of Dodona can help jog my memory. At least he insults me in flowery Shakespearean language.'
I drew the arrow from my quiver. 'O prophetic missile, I need your guidance!'
There was no answer.
I wondered if the arrow had been lolled to sleep by the magic surrounding the storage container. Then I realized there was a simpler explanation. I returned the arrow to my quiver and pulled out a different one.
'You chose the wrong arrow, didn't you?' Meg guessed.
'No!' I snapped. 'You just don't understand my process. I'm going back into the sphere of silence now.'
'But -'
I marched away before Meg could finish.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4))
“
In the old days of Take Back the Night, you could march with other women and feel that all the rapists of the world were small and powerless.
”
”
Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings)
“
A man who degraded and threatened women made you want to do everything possible. Howl and scream; march; give a speech; call Congress around the clock; fall in love with someone decent; show a young woman that all is not lost, despite the evidence; change the way it feels to be a woman walking down a street at night anywhere in the world, or a girl coming out of a KwikStop in Macopee, Massachusetts, in daylight, holding an ice cream. She wouldn’t have to worry about her breasts, whether they would ever grow, or grow big enough. She wouldn’t have to think anything physical or sexual about herself at all unless she wanted to. She could dress the way she liked. She could feel capable and safe and free, which was what Faith Frank had always wanted for women.
”
”
Meg Wolitzer (The Female Persuasion)
“
That maybe I’m the answer,’ I blurted. ‘To healing your heart. I could … you know, be your boyfriend. As Lester. If you wanted. You and me. You know, like … yeah.’ I was absolutely certain that up on Mount Olympus, the other Olympians all had their phones out and were filming me to post on Euterpe-Tube. Reyna stared at me long enough for the marching band in my circulatory system to play a complete stanza of ‘You’re a Grand Old Flag’. Her eyes were dark and dangerous. Her expression was unreadable, like the outer surface of an explosive device. She was going to murder me. No. She would order her dogs to murder me. By the time Meg rushed to my aid, it would be too late. Or worse – Meg would help Reyna bury my remains, and no one would be the wiser. When they returned to camp, the Romans would ask, What happened to Apollo? Who? Reyna would say. Oh, that guy? Dunno, we lost him. Oh, well! the Romans would reply, and that would be that. Reyna’s mouth tightened into a grimace. She bent over, gripping her knees. Her body began to shake. Oh, gods, what had I done? Perhaps I should comfort her, hold her in my arms. Perhaps I should run for my life. Why was I so bad at romance? Reyna made a squeaking sound, then a sort of sustained whimper. I really had hurt her! Then she straightened, tears streaming down her face, and burst into laughter. The sound reminded me of water rushing over a riverbed that had been dry for ages. Once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. She doubled over, stood upright again, leaned against a tree and looked at her dogs as if to share the joke. ‘Oh … my … gods,’ she wheezed. She managed to restrain her mirth long enough to blink at me through the tears, as if to make sure I was really there and she’d heard me correctly. ‘You. Me? HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4))
“
Do you think Meg cares for him?" asked Mrs. March, with an anxious look.
"Mercy me! I don't know anything about love and such nonsense!" cried Jo, with a funny mixture of interest and contempt. "In novels, the girls show it by starting and blushing, fainting away, growing thin, and acting like fools. Now Meg does not do anything of the sort. She eats and drinks and sleeps like a sensible creature.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
In order that we may start afresh, and go to Meg’s wedding with free minds, it will be well to begin with a little gossip about the Marches. And here let me premise, that if any of the elders think there is too much ‘lovering’ in the story, as I fear they may (I’m not afraid the young folks will make that objection), I can only say with Mrs March, ‘What can you expect when I have four gay girls in the house, and a dashing young neighbour over the way?
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Good Wives (Little Women, #1.5))
“
I drive back into town with the two crinkly notes in my pocket and wonder if I could support a family this way, doomed to play dinner dances until I too have one foot in the grave. I shudder at the possibility, and think about poor Meg in her sickbed. What am I going to do? On the way back I pass a big roundabout at the end of the Coast Road. It is March, and the roundabout is covered in daffodils. I circle it twice, an idea forming in my head. I park in a nearby street. It is early morning and there is no one around. I check for police cars and head across the road to the roundabout. Half an hour later I let myself into Megan’s flat and slowly open her bedroom door. My arms are full of daffodils, maybe a hundred all told, their drooping yellow trumpets lighting up the entire room. Meg starts to cry, and so do I. The next morning our prayers are answered, but our relief is mixed with a subtle, unspoken regret.
”
”
Sting (Broken Music: A Memoir)
“
A large sheaf, but I know there's room in your heart for it, Marmee dear," added Meg's tender voice. Touched to the heart, Mrs. March could only stretch out her arms, as if to gather children and grandchildren to herself, and say, with face and voice full of motherly love, gratitude, and humility... "Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women (Illustrated))
“
Gránátosok és lovasvadászok! A kozákok itt meg itt meg itt meg itt találhatóak - mutatott [Lefébre marsall] a szélrózsa négy irányába. - Ha nem követtek, sz...ban vagytok. Én nem akármilyen tábornok vagyok, és a moselle-i hadseregnél nem véletlenül emlegettek Örökkévaló Atyának. Gránátosok és lovasvadászok, ismétlem: ha nem tartotok ki mellettem, sz...ban vagytok. Egyébként sz...ok rá, felőlem sz...játok össze magatokat!
”
”
Adam Zamoyski (Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March)
“
Right, Jo. Better be happy old maids than unhappy wives, or unmaidenly girls, running about to find husbands," said Mrs. March decidedly. "Don't be troubled, Meg, poverty seldom daunts a sincere lover. Some of the best and most honored women I know were poor girls, but so love-worthy that they were not allowed to be old maids. Leave these things to time. Make this home happy, so that you may be fit for homes of your own, if they are offered you, and contented here if they are not.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
Jo is the one who writes popular fiction for money, Amy is the one who scrapes together what materials she can find to pursue her artistic ambitions and makes no money, as yet. Jo's moneymaking is seen as a necessity so that the Marches can get by. But because Amy dresses well, behaves properly, and gets along with Aunt March, and because, unlike Jo, she does not dismiss the idea of marrying for money, readers may misunderstand Amy. Amy is not more selfish than Jo, she is more canny...Amy has already demonstrated the value of reason, understanding, thoughtfulness, getting along. If we return to the spot in part one where Marmee tells Meg and Jo what she wants for her daughters, the first descriptive word out of her mouth is 'beautiful.' It is Amy who has done what her mother wanted, who has used her looks, i.e., to become beautiful in the eyes of society, to get ahead, but she has done so not out of vanity or greed but because, through her art, she has sought to understand the nature of beauty--in herself, in admiring Aunt March's jewelry, in painting, in relationships
”
”
Jane Smiley (March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women)
“
Twentysomethings take these difficult moments particularly hard. Compared to older adults, they find negative information—the bad news—more memorable than positive information—or the good news. MRI studies show that twentysomething brains simply react more strongly to negative information than do the brains of older adults. There is more activity in the amygdala—the seat of the emotional brain. When twentysomethings have their competence criticized, they become anxious and angry. They are tempted to march in and take action. They generate negative feelings toward others and obsess about the why: “Why did my boss say that? Why doesn’t my boss like me?” Taking work so intensely personally can make a forty-hour workweek long indeed.
”
”
Meg Jay (The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now)
“
I never ought to, while I have you to cheer me up, Marmee, and Laurie to take more than half of every burden," replied Amy warmly. "He never lets me see his anxiety, but is so sweet and patient with me, so devoted to Beth, and such a stay and comfort to me always that I can't love him enough. So, in spite of my one cross, I can say with Meg, 'Thank God, I'm a happy woman.'" "There's no need for me to say it, for everyone can see that I'm far happier than I deserve," added Jo, glancing from her good husband to her chubby children, tumbling on the grass beside her. "Fritz is getting gray and stout. I'm growing as thin as a shadow, and am thirty. We never shall be rich, and Plumfield may burn up any night, for that incorrigible Tommy Bangs will smoke sweet-fern cigars under the bed-clothes, though he's set himself afire three times already. But in spite of these unromantic facts, I have nothing to complain of, and never was so jolly in my life. Excuse the remark, but living among boys, I can't help using their expressions now and then." "Yes, Jo, I think your harvest will be a good one," began Mrs. March, frightening away a big black cricket that was staring Teddy out of countenance. "Not half so good as yours, Mother. Here it is, and we never can thank you enough for the patient sowing and reaping you have done," cried Jo, with the loving impetuosity which she never would outgrow. "I hope there will be more wheat and fewer tares every year," said Amy softly.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women (Illustrated))
“
No one spoke of the great trouble, not even Mrs. March, for all had learned by experience that when Jo was in that mood words were wasted, and the wisest course was to wait till some little accident, or her own generous nature, softened Jo's resentment and healed the breach. It was not a happy evening, for though they sewed as usual, while their mother read aloud from Bremer, Scott, or Edgeworth, something was wanting, and the sweet home peace was disturbed. They felt this most when singing time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and all felt out of tune.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women (Little Women #1))
“
In March 1997, Jules and Dennis went to dinner at Ash and Ethan's house along with Duncan and Shyla, the portfolio manager and the literary advocate. The prick and the cunt, Jules had once called them. Jules and Dennis had never understood why Ash and Ethan liked this couple so much, but they'd all been thrown together so many times over the years, for casual evenings and more formal celebrations, that it was too late to ask. Duncan and Shyla must have felt equally puzzled at Ash and Ethan's fidelity to their old friends the social worker and the depressive. No one said a word against anyone; everyone went to the dinners to which they were invited. Both couples knew they satisfied a different part of Ash and Ethan, but when they all came together in one place, the group made no sense.
”
”
Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings)
“
Many of us, the children of middle-class Manila, were fed on Catholic guilt and raised under the bright sun of the American dream. We went to church. We went to school. We recited the rosary every night and ate no meat on Good Friday. We hung tinsel on plastic Christmas trees, studied John Steinbeck, memorized the beatitudes, and measured our skirts a polite three inches below the knees. Money was tight, but there were books. When my mother’s girlhood collection ran out, she sent me to my grandfather and his numbered bookshelves. I lived for most of my adolescence on rafts floating down the Mississippi, inside little houses on prairies, and around wood fires in the New England and Chicago and London of my imagination. I was Meg Murry. I was Jo March. I was Scout and Mowgli and Anne Shirley and Lyra Silvertongue and for one glorious summer Sherlock Holmes, with my father playing my indulgent Watson. My
”
”
Patricia Evangelista (Some People Need Killing)
“
Ma Chere Mamma,
We are all well I do my lessons always and never corroberate the girls -- Meg says I mean contradick so I put in both words and you can take the properest. Meg is a great comfort to me and lets me have jelly every night at tea its so good for me Jo says because it keeps me sweet tempered. Laurie is not as respeckful as he ought to be now I am almost in my teens, he calls me Chick and hurts my feelings by talking French to me very fast when I say Merci or Bon jour as Hattie King does. The sleeves of my blue dress were all worn out, and Meg put in new ones, but the full front came wrong and they are more blue than the dress. I felt bad but did not fret I bear my troubles well but I do wish Hannah would put more starch in my aprons and have buckwheats every day. Can't she? Didn't I make that interrogation point nice? Meg says my punchtuation and spelling are disgraceful and I am mortyfied but dear me I have so many things to do, I can't stop. Adieu, I send heaps of love to Papa. Your affectionate daughter . ..
AMY CURTIS MARCH
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
-Querida, no te enfades por esto y deja que te cuente cómo ocurrió todo. John me acompañó a petición del señor Laurence y se mostró tan atento con tu pobre padre que no pudimos evitar tomarle cariño. Fue totalmente sincero y honrado con respecto a sus sentimientos hacia Meg, nos dijo que la quería pero que trabajaría para poder darle un hogar confortable antes de pedir su mano. Solo pretendía contar con nuestro consentimiento para quererla y luchar por ella, y nuestro permiso para intentar conquistar su corazón. Es un hombre extraordinario y no podíamos negarnos a escucharle, pero no permitiré que que Meg se comprometa siendo tan joven.
-Claro que no, ¡sería una estupidez! Sabía que tramaba algo, lo sentía. ¡Pero es peor de lo que imaginaba! Cómo me gustaría poder casarme con Meg yo misma para mantenerla sana y salva dentro de la familia.
Tan curiosa ocurrencia hizo sonreír a la señora March, que sin embargo añadió muy seria:
-Jo, confío en ti. No le digas nada a Meg. Cuando John vuelva, los veré juntos y entonces conoceré mejor los sentimientos de tu hermana hacía él.
-Ella verá los de él en la forma en que la mirará con esos hermosos ojos de los que tanto me habla y, entonces, estará perdida. Tiene el corazón blando y se derretirá como mantequilla bajo el sol si alguien la mira con amor.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Mujercitas)
“
Lester.” Reyna sighed. “What in Tartarus are you saying? I’m not in the mood for riddles.” “That maybe I’m the answer,” I blurted. “To healing your heart. I could…you know, be your boyfriend. As Lester. If you wanted. You and me. You know, like…yeah.” I was absolutely certain that up on Mount Olympus, the other Olympians all had their phones out and were filming me to post on Euterpe-Tube. Reyna stared at me long enough for the marching band in my circulatory system to play a complete stanza of “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” Her eyes were dark and dangerous. Her expression was unreadable, like the outer surface of an explosive device. She was going to murder me. No. She would order her dogs to murder me. By the time Meg rushed to my aid, it would be too late. Or worse—Meg would help Reyna bury my remains, and no one would be the wiser. When they returned to camp, the Romans would ask What happened to Apollo? Who? Reyna would say. Oh, that guy? Dunno, we lost him. Oh, well! the Romans would reply, and that would be that. Reyna’s mouth tightened into a grimace. She bent over, gripping her knees. Her body began to shake. Oh, gods, what had I done? Perhaps I should comfort her, hold her in my arms. Perhaps I should run for my life. Why was I so bad at romance? Reyna made a squeaking sound, then a sort of sustained whimper. I really had hurt her! Then she straightened, tears streaming down her face, and burst into laughter. The sound reminded me of water rushing over a creek bed that had been dry for ages. Once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. She doubled over, stood upright again, leaned against a tree, and looked at her dogs as if to share the joke. “Oh…my…gods,” she wheezed. She managed to restrain her mirth long enough to blink at me through the tears, as if to make sure I was really there and she’d heard me correctly. “You. Me? HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4))
“
No, I wouldn’t, for the smart caps won’t match the plain gowns without any trimming on them. Poor folks shouldn’t rig,” said Jo decidedly. “I wonder if I shall ever be happy enough to have real lace on my clothes and bows on my caps?” said Meg impatiently. “You said the other day that you’d be perfectly happy if you could only go to Annie Moffat’s,” observed Beth in her quiet way. “So I did! Well, I am happy, and I won’t fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants, doesn’t it? There now, the trays are ready, and everything in but my ball dress, which I shall leave for Mother to pack,” said Meg, cheering up, as she glanced from the half-filled trunk to the many times pressed and mended white tarlaton, which she called her ‘ball dress’ with an important air. The next day was fine, and Meg departed in style for a fortnight of novelty and pleasure. Mrs. March had consented to the visit rather reluctantly, fearing that Margaret would come back more discontented than she went. But she begged so hard, and Sallie had promised to take good care of her, and a little pleasure seemed so delightful after a winter of irksome work that the mother yielded, and the daughter went to take her first taste of fashionable life. The Moffats were very fashionable, and simple Meg was rather daunted, at first, by the splendor of the house and the elegance of its occupants. But they were kindly people, in spite of the frivolous life they led, and soon put their guest at her ease. Perhaps Meg felt, without understanding why, that they were not particularly cultivated or intelligent people, and that all their gilding could not quite conceal the ordinary material of which they were made. It certainly was agreeable to fare sumptuously, drive in a fine carriage, wear her best frock every day, and do nothing but enjoy herself. It suited her exactly, and soon she began to imitate the manners and conversation of those about her, to put on little airs and graces,
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
And slamming the door in Meg's face, Aunt March drove off in high dudgeon. She seemed to take all the girl's courage with her, for when left alone, Meg stood for a moment, undecided whether to laugh or cry. Before she could make up her mind, she was taken possession of by Mr. Brooke, who said all in one breath, "I couldn't help hearing, Meg. Thank you for defending me, and Aunt March for proving that you do care for me a little bit."
"I didn't know how much till she abused you," began Meg.
"And I needn't go away, but my stay and be happy, may I, dear?"
Here was another fine chance to make the crushing speech and the stately exit, but Meg never thought of doing either, and disgraced herself forever in Jo's eyes by meekly whispering, "Yes, John," and hiding her face on Mr. Brooke's waistcoat.
Fifteen minutes after Aunt March's departure, Jo came softly downstairs, paused an instant at the parlor door, and hearing no sound within, nodded and smiled with a satisfied expression, saying to herself, "She has seen him away as we planned, and that affair is settled. I'll go and hear the fun, and have a good laugh over it."
But poor Jo never got her laugh, for she was transfixed upon the threshold by a spectacle which held her there, staring with her mouth nearly as wide open as her eyes. Going in to exult over a fallen enemy and to praise a strong-minded sister for the banishment of an objectionable lover, it certainly was a shock to behold the aforesaid enemy serenely sitting on the sofa, with the strong-minded sister enthroned upon his knee and wearing an expression of the most abject submission. Jo gave a sort of gasp, as if a cold shower bath had suddenly fallen upon her, for such an unexpected turning of the tables actually took her breath away. At the odd sound the lovers turned and saw her. Meg jumped up, looking both proud and shy, but `that man', as Jo called him, actually laughed and said coolly, as he kissed the astonished newcomer, "Sister Jo, congratulate us!"
That was adding insult to injury, it was altogether too much, and making some wild demonstration with her hands, Jo vanished without a word. Rushing upstairs, she startled the invalids by exclaiming tragically as she burst into the room, "Oh, do somebody go down quick! John Brooke is acting dreadfully, and Meg likes it!
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
“
In a letter written to the play's director, Peter Wood, on 30th March 1958, just before the start of rehearsals, Pinter rightly refused to add extra lines explaining or justifying Stanley's motives in withdrawing from the world into a dingy seaside boarding-house: 'Stanley cannot perceive his only valid justification - which is he is what he is - therefore he certainly can never be articulate about it.' But Pinter came much closer than he usually does to offering an explanation of the finished work:
We've agreed: the hierarchy, the
Establishment, the arbiters, the socio-
religious monsters arrive to affect
censure and alteration upon a
member of the club who has discarded
responsibility (that word again) towards
himself and others. (What is your
opinion, by the way, of the act of
suicide?) He does possess, however, for
my money, a certain fibre - he fights for
his life. It doesn't last long, this fight. His
core being a quagmire of delusion, his
mind a tenuous fuse box, he collapses
under the weight of their accusation - an
accusation compounded of the shit-
stained strictures of centuries of
'tradition'.
This gets us right to the heart of the matter. It is not simply a play about a pathetic victim brainwashed into social conformity. It is a play about the need to resist, with the utmost vigour, dead ideas and the inherited weight of the past. And if you examine the text, you notice how Pinter has toughened up the original image of the man in the Eastbourne digs with 'nowhere to go'. Pinter's Stanley Webber - a palpably Jewish name, incidentally - is a man who shores up his precarious sense of self through fantasy, bluff, violence and his own manipulative form of power-play. His treatment of Meg initially is rough, playful, teasing: he's an ersatz, scarpegrace Oedipus to her boardinghouse Jocasta. But once she makes the fateful, mood-changing revelation - 'I've got to get things in for the two gentlemen' - he's as dangerous as a cornered animal. He affects a wanton grandeur with his talk of a European concert tour. He projects his own fear on to Meg by terrorising her with stories of nameless men coming to abduct her in a van. In his first solo encounter with McCann, he tries to win him over by appealing to a shared past (Maidenhead, Fuller's tea shop, Boots library) and a borrowed patriotism ('I know Ireland very well. I've many friends there. I love that country and I admire and trust its people... I think their policemen are wonderful'). At the start of the interrogation he resists Goldberg's injunction to sit down and at the end of it he knees him in the stomach. And in the panic of the party, he attempts to strangle Meg and rape Lulu. These are hardly the actions of a supine victim. Even though Stanley is finally carried off shaven, besuited, white-collared and ostensibly tamed, the spirit of resistance is never finally quelled. When asked how he regards the prospect of being able to 'make or break' in the integrated outer world, he does not stay limply silent, but produces the most terrifying noises.
”
”
Michael Billington (Harold Pinter)
“
The older woman is now talking with Eve and invading her personal space by several inches. She’s a friend . . . no—a neighbor, stopping to make sure everything’s okay. She lives on the same floor, maybe even in the apartment across from them, and doesn’t like when Eve and her mother argue. Maybe she’s a lonely widow who lingers just inside her door, listening for Eve and Meg as they come and go so she can “coincidentally” bump into them for a moment of human contact. Once a month, she makes cookies—horrible raisin or bran cookies that have been baked from recipes in her family for generations—and dutifully marches them across the hallway to Eve and Meg, hoping to be invited in for a few moments, maybe even invited to stay for dinner.
”
”
Erik Therme (If She Dies (Harlow #1))
“
I hate you, I thought, I hate you with your bloody nature-boy airs and your bloody forced-march voyage of bloody discovery. I wondered then if Finn's personality worked on everyone, or whether I had just the the right sort of mentality to fall in step with a self-centered hermit-boy crab murderer.
”
”
Meg Rosoff (What I Was)
“
And you both sometimes speak without considering the full impact of your words on the people you care about.
”
”
Virginia Kantra (Meg and Jo (The March Sisters, #1))
“
Először végy jó sok havat, mert nagy mennyiség kell egy kevés vízhez; olvaszd meg, vegyítsd bele a lisztet, majd zsír hiányában tegyél hozzá némi kocsikenőcsöt, só hiányában pedig egy kis puskaport. Forrón tálald, és akkor fogyaszd, ha nagyon éhes vagy."
(A "Spártai kása" receptje)
”
”
Adam Zamoyski (Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March)
“
coughed. Granny, you know I love Meg very much, and I’ve decided that I would like to ask her to marry me, and I’ve been told that, er, that I have to ask your permission before I can propose. You have to? Um. Well, yes, that’s what your staff tell me, and my staff as well. That I have to ask your permission. I stood completely still, as motionless as the birds in my hands. I stared at her face but it was unreadable. At last she replied: Well, then, I suppose I have to say yes. I squinted. You feel you have to say yes? Does that mean you are saying yes? But that you want to say no? I didn’t get it. Was she being sarcastic? Ironic? Deliberately cryptic? Was she indulging in a bit of wordplay? I’d never known Granny to do any wordplay, and this would be a surpassingly bizarre moment (not to mention wildly inconvenient) for her to start, but maybe she just saw the chance to play off my unfortunate use of the word “have” and couldn’t resist? Or else, perhaps there was some hidden meaning beneath the wordplay, some message I wasn’t comprehending? I stood there squinting, smiling, asking myself over and over: What is the Queen of England saying to me right now? At long last I realized: She’s saying yes, you muppet! She’s granting permission. Who cares how she words it, just know when to take yes for an answer. So I sputtered: Right. OK, Granny! Well. Fabulous. Thank you! Thank you so much. I wanted to hug her. I longed to hug her. I didn’t hug her. I saw her into the Range Rover, then marched back to Pa and Willy.
”
”
Prince Harry (Spare)
“
This was love. Not holding back, not keeping score, but doing things for each other. Giving to each other. Not out of obligation, but generously, because it was a joy to offer.
”
”
Virginia Kantra (Meg and Jo (The March Sisters, #1))
“
Picking up and moving things - bags of groceries, stacks of mail, scattered toys, the kids...That was my day.
”
”
Virginia Kantra (Meg and Jo (The March Sisters, #1))
“
We were still us, I thought, looking around at my sisters. There was no one else who shared our history, who spoke our secret language, who could summon the past or drive me crazy with a single word. And yet..."It's the same," I said. "But not the same.
”
”
Virginia Kantra (Meg and Jo (The March Sisters, #1))
“
Do all the good you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can,
”
”
Virginia Kantra (Meg and Jo (The March Sisters, #1))
“
Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
”
”
Virginia Kantra (Meg and Jo (The March Sisters, #1))
“
We were still us, I thought, looking around at my sisters. There was no one else who shared our history, who spoke our secret language, who could summon the past or drive me crazy with a single word. And yet..."It's the same," I said. "But not the same.
”
”
Virginia Kantra (Meg and Jo (The March Sisters, #1))
“
I oughtn’t to have eaten so much,” Richard groaned, laying a hand on his slim midsection. “Not when I am not marching to burn it off.” “You might march, if you wish,” Darcy remarked, from his seat in the corner. “Rise with the rooster and plot a route around the grounds. I shall give Georgiana leave to heckle you, if you are missing regimental life so sorely.” Richard grinned. “Thank you, no. I have been on the receiving end of Georgiana’s heckling before and she is a crueller drill-sergeant than any who wears colours. No, I shall embark on some easier exercise, I think. Perhaps a ride.
”
”
Meg Osborne (Mr Darcy's Summer Surprise: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (Pride and Prejudice Variation Novella Book 5))