“
I don't deserve you. I'm not made for relationships. I know I'm going to fuck this up. I'm going to drive you away or do something to hurt you, and you'll be added to my list of people I screwed over. You should walk away now.
”
”
M.A. Stacie (Unwritten Rules)
“
As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
If the entire cheerleading squad turns into mice, Robin, I will be very upset with you. Mortal adolescents are blind and cruel. You know that. You mustn't take revenge, no matter how you feel about the girl. Especially now. There are more worrisome things on the move.
-Ms Stacy
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Iron King (The Iron Fey, #1))
“
Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it...well with no mistakes in it yet.
”
”
Angelica M. Stacy
“
And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
Men are like dogs," Stacy was fond of saying. And she usually went on to add that, like dogs, they all took up too much space on the bed, and they always went for the crotch.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Smooth Talking Stranger (Travises, #3))
“
We both smile at the classic misunderstanding. It’s all so cliché-ridden, it’s embarrassing. I wish our story could have some more original twists and turns. Maybe one of us will turn into a vampire or something.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
When a woman teams up with a snake a moral storm threatens somewhere.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
Stacy can choke on store-bought sugar cookies like the rest of us. Why's he even bringing them? They're dentists. They should be eating celery.
”
”
Sarah Hogle (You Deserve Each Other)
“
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
”
”
Stacy Willingham (A Flicker in the Dark)
“
[Eating disorders] are a wonderful tool for helping you reject others before they can reject you. Example: You're at a party. The popular girls are there. You know you can never be as cool as they are, but when one of the pops a potato chip into her mouth or chooses real Coke over Diet, for that moment you are better
”
”
Stacy Pershall
“
I always watch you. You consume my every thought.
”
”
M.A. Stacie (Unwritten Rules)
“
Each day we stood almost shoulder to shoulder, occupying the same space, breathing the same air, but we remained strangers.
”
”
M.A. Stacie (Unwritten Rules)
“
Braveness isn't always loud. Sometimes it's silent. There's braveness in sacrifice and kindness. It's in doing a thing that needs to be done, even though it's hard, and even though it hurts.
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
Cleopatra stood at one of the most dangerous intersections in history; that of women and power. Clever women, Euripides had warned hundreds of years earlier, were dangerous.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
Cincinatti was where I learned that running away from your problems has a three-month statute of limitations, a lesson I have found repeatedly to be true. Three months is still a first impression -- of a city, of other people, of yourself in that place. But there comes a point when you can no longer hide who you are, and the reactions of others become all too familiar...
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
A depressed person is selfish because her self, the very core of who she is, will not leave her alone, and she can no more stop thinking about this self and how to escape it than a prisoner held captive by a sadistic serial killer can forget about the person who comes in to torture her everyday. Her body is brutalized by her mind.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
Sophie has to go home and sleep in her own bed,” Stacy tells them with a smile.
“She can sleep in our bed, like Caleb sleeps in Mommy’s bed,” Maddie replies.
Just shoot me
”
”
Kristen Proby (Safe with Me (With Me in Seattle, #5))
“
To anyone who thinks eating disorders are something rich, bored white girls do to get attention, I bid you bite me. I have frequent, intense, inappropriate outbursts of anger over the lies little girls are told about what is beautiful.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
Pursue your goal. Opinions be damned.
”
”
Stacy Verdick Case
“
See what I mean? Your confidence is so strong it’s obnoxious.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
what shall we drink to?"
"How about family?" Stacy said, showing up just in time to pour a fourth shot. "To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost." and she clicked glasses with mom
”
”
Kristin Hannah (Winter Garden)
“
That’s the beauty of books, little sister. What means nothing to one has a profound effect on another.
”
”
Staci Hart (With a Twist (Bad Habits, #1))
“
[Cleopatra's] power has been made to derive from her sexuality, for obvious reason; as one of Caesar's murderers had noted, 'How much more attention people pay to their fears than to their memories!' It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
There is no length to love; it's infinite. It lives in you always. Hold on to it.
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
Guys find me neutered, detached, invisible. I’m Switzerland. The girls Max dates are Brazil.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
There are so many subtle ways we women subconsciously protect ourselves throughout the day; protect ourselves from shadows, from unseen predators. From cautionary tales and urban legends. So subtle, in fact, that we hardly even realize we’re doing them.
”
”
Stacy Willingham (A Flicker in the Dark)
“
You have to let go of who you were to allow yourself to become who you are.
”
”
Stacy London
“
Nobody would commit suicide if the pain of being inside herself, the agony of the sleepless, tortured hours spent watching the world get smaller and uglier, were bearable or could be relieved by other people telling her how they wanted her to feel. A depressed person is selfish because her self, the very core of who she is, will not leave her alone, and she can no more stop thinking about this self and how to escape it than a prisoner held captive by a sadistic serial killer can forget about the person who comes in to torture her everyday. Her body is brutalized by her mind. It hurts to breathe, eat, walk, think. The gross maneuverings of her limbs are so overwhelming, so wearying, that the fine muscle movements or quickness of wit necessary to write, to actually say something, are completely out of the question.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
I play by the rules even when there aren’t any.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
It’s like if Ryan Gosling showed up at your door dressed like Noah from The Notebook, bearing flowers and whiskey. You’d be stupid not to take that bike for a ride.
”
”
Staci Hart (With a Twist (Bad Habits, #1))
“
You are mine. Do you understand me? Mine! And if I have to spend the rest of my life finding every single piece of your broken heart, I will. I will put you back together again Em. I’ll do it because I’m still so in love with you. I will fix you, and I’ll fix this.
”
”
Stacy Borel (Ever Enough (Ever Enough, #1))
“
Ancient history is oddly short on incorrect omens.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
Everyone‘s screwed up. Just in different ways.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
The singing stopped when I walked in. They all turned and stared at me, Bonne-Bell-Orange-Crush-glossed mouths hanging open, looking at me with the same horror and excitement they'd exhibit it I had just walked into the room naked. I stood there frozen, hyperaware of my scruffiness, my shirt untucked and one ponytail higher than the other. The Bad Dog turned me in on myself like a vortex, gleefully saying, Look, look. There they are, here you are. Separate. You do not belong.
”
”
Stacy Pershall
“
It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
My life was dark, torture and empty before you found me. You brought the light, Red. I love you.
”
”
M.A. Stacie (Unwritten Rules)
“
Don't let fear or insecurity stop you from trying new things. Believe in yourself. Do what you love. And most importantly, be kind to others, even if you don't like them.
”
”
Stacy London
“
Maybe you need to stop retracing your footsteps. Maybe you need to try a new path.
”
”
Stacy Willingham (All the Dangerous Things)
“
Oh, you want me to lie still while you check me out? Damn, Red, if I'd have known that earlier I would've been horizontal already.
”
”
M.A. Stacie (Unwritten Rules)
“
As incandescent as was her personality, Cleopatra was every bit Caesar's equal as a coolheaded, clear-eyed pragmatist, though what passed on his part as strategy would be remembered on hers as manipulation.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
We all subscribe to preposterous beliefs; we just don’t know yet which ones they are. We too have been known to prefer plot to truth; to deny the evidence before us in favor of the ideas behind us; to do insane things in the name of reason; to take that satisfying step from the righteous to the self-righteous; to drown our private guilts in a public well; to indulge in a little delusion.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (The Witches: Salem, 1692)
“
We’ve talked it to death, Rose.”
“Well, then talk to its ghost.
”
”
Staci Hart (Wasted Words (The Austens, #1))
“
And changing the world is a tall order for someone who is just trying to survive each day.
”
”
Stacy McAnulty (The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl)
“
The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero's life. It is difficult to name anything in which he took more pleasure, aside possibly evasion of the sumptuary laws. Cicero liked to believe himself wealthy. He prided himself on his books. He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
Life is short, so short, so precious, every minute, every day. Don't let the people you love, the people who make you happy, the people who bring you joy — don't let them go. Hang on to them, even when it hurts. When it seems impossible. Hold on to the things that breathe life into you. Listen to your soul and honor what it tells you. Live. Fight for what you love. Because one day, you'll be where I am, and in that moment I want you to look back gladly, with no regrets.
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
I drop my face to my hands and scrub hard.
"I wish I had your boobs," I hear Sam announce and raise my head to see who she's talking to. Of course, she's talking to Bryn.
"Right," she smirks and takes another bite of brownie.
"Dude, I do!" And just like that, Sam saunters across the room and cups Brynna's tit in her palm. "See? You have the perfect boobs. Stace, have you felt her boobs?"
Just kill me. Put a bullet in my head and end the agony.
"Oh yeah," Stacy waves her off. "She has great tits."
She has amazing tits.
"I wanna feel!" Jules bounces over and joins in.
"Give me more chocolate and you can touch all you want." Brynna laughs and then glances over at me. "This is the most action I've had in months."
"Motherfuckingsonofawhore." I grumble.
"Is Brynna single?" Mark asks Will.
"Keep your fucking hands off her," I growl at him before I know what's coming out of my mouth.
"Hey," he holds his hands up in surrender and laughs. "It was just an innocent question.
”
”
Kristen Proby (Safe with Me (With Me in Seattle, #5))
“
Women play the villains in fairy tales—what are you saying when you place the very emblem of lowly domestic duty between your legs and ride off, defying the bounds of community and laws of gravity?
”
”
Stacy Schiff (The Witches: Salem, 1692)
“
Damon Isaac King … wait, your initials are—”
I grit my teeth. “I know. You don’t think Stacy has made that joke to our parents ever since I came out? ‘No wonder he likes dick when his initials are DIK.
”
”
Eden Finley (Fake Out (Fake Boyfriend, #1))
“
A solitary eyebrow inched up Perry’s forehead. “Your lust for meat never ceases to amaze me.”
“Don’t judge,” Dita said around a mouthful of bacon.
”
”
Staci Hart (Deer in Headlights (Good Gods, #1))
“
How’d you get to be so smart?"
“Years of being stupid and learning from it.
”
”
Staci Hart (Wasted Words (The Austens, #1))
“
Things disturb us in the night. Sometimes they are our consciences. Sometimes they are our secrets. Sometimes they are our fears, translated from one idiom to another.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (The Witches: Salem, 1692)
“
The truth is, people love violence—from a distance, that is. Anyone who disagrees is either in denial or hiding something.
”
”
Stacy Willingham (All the Dangerous Things)
“
To behold such majestic beauty, is admiring the creative mind and finger of God.
”
”
Stacy Nazario
“
Hard as nails Stacy Killian was one like one of those Tootsie Roll Pops - hard shell, soft, chewy center.
Once a guy knew the center could be chewed, that's what they did. Chewed you up and spit you out. Or swallowed you, bite by bite. Goodbye respect. Goodbye self-esteem.
”
”
Erica Spindler (Killer Takes All (Stacy Killian, #2))
“
I lived a thousand lives to escape from real life, because real life is boring and shitty.
”
”
Staci Hart (Wasted Words (The Austens, #1))
“
My fault? How the hell is this"--I waved my arm across the table-- my fault?"
"You know we don't believe in hell, so stop using that word in our presence," Bridie said.
"Fine. How in fucked-up fairyland is this my fault?
”
”
Barbra Annino (Bloodstone (A Stacy Justice Mystery, #3))
“
As Dio observed later, democracy sounded very well and good, “but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
Not all deviance is negative; without it, we'd never change the world.
”
”
Stacy Pershall
“
The two of us together were childhood trauma wrapped in a bow and placed delicately on the doorsteps of every doctor in Louisiana. Everybody knew who we were; everybody knew what was wrong with us. Everybody knew, but nobody could fix it. So I decided to fix it myself.
”
”
Stacy Willingham (A Flicker in the Dark)
“
One of the things I’ve read about borderlines is that we alternate between a sense of entitlement and the belief that we’re lower than the dirt under people’s shoes.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
The great thing about falling apart, is that you get to decide how to put yourself back together. Make good choices.
”
”
Stacie Hammond (Ana J. Awakens)
“
The key is to figure out how God can effectively use you where you're planted now, regardless of how you got there.
”
”
Stacy Hawkins Adams (The Someday List (Jubilant Soul #1))
“
So unfair, she thought. Her baby was going to grow up, and her husband wasn't.
”
”
Stacy Bierlein (A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends)
“
But loving someone isn't only making promises you know you can keep. That's just playing it safe. Where's the moral fiber in that? Loving someone is making promises you want to keep with all your heart, and then doing everything you can to make it happen, even if you fail sometimes. But the point is to try, because that's how you stretch yourself and learn you can do more than you thought you could. And maybe next time, you'll stretch a little farther.
”
”
Stacy DeKeyser (Jump the Cracks)
“
What are you talking about? You’re like a professional boyfriend.”
“Thanks. You make me sound like a gigolo.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
When people get hurt physically, you can see it in the bruises and the scars, but when they’re hurt emotionally, mentally, it runs deeper than that. You can see every sleepless night in the reflection of their eyes; you can see every tear stained into their cheeks, every bout of anger etched into the creases in their foreheads. The thirst for blood cracking the skin on their lips.
”
”
Stacy Willingham (A Flicker in the Dark)
“
Home is not a place, Not a smell, Not a face, But a space In your heart. -M. White
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
People are rarely what they seem, babe.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
And suddenly I started to cry. Serious sobs, the kind where your stomach hurts and you can’t breathe and there’s snot running down your face. I was crying so hard I couldn’t even mute the sounds I was making, and Luke put his hand on my back and I thought about how everyone would think that I was crying because of Stacy’s fucking speech and I wanted to kill someone. I wanted to kill someone and I wanted to die and I wanted to run as far and as fast as I could.
”
”
Melissa Kantor (Maybe One Day)
“
Remember that you’re mine, and we will get through this. I love you with every fiber in my soul, and if I have to love you enough for the both of us, for however long it takes, I will.
”
”
Stacy Borel (Ever Enough (Ever Enough, #1))
“
…I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws.' 'So's everybody's,' said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. 'Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3))
“
Borderline means you’re one of those girls…
…who walk around wearing long sleeves in the summer because you’ve carved up your forearms over your boyfriend. You make pathetic suicidal gestures and write bad poetry about them, listen to Ani DiFranco albums on endless repeat, end up in the emergency room for overdoses, scare off boyfriends by insisting they tell you that they love you five hundred times a day and hacking into their email to make sure they’re not lying, have a police record for shoplifting, and your tooth enamel is eroded from purging. You’ve had five addresses and eight jobs in three years, your friends are avoiding your phone calls, you’re questioning your sexuality, and the credit card companies are after you. It took a lot of years to admit that I was exactly that girl, and that the diagnostic criteria for the disorder were essentially an outline of my life.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
There is no length to love; it's infinite. It lives in you always. Hold on to it." "But it hurts," she sobbed. "That's how you know it was real.
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
Making you smile gives me life. Making you laugh gives me hope. Making you happy is all I want, other than to keep you.
”
”
Staci Hart (Chaser (Bad Habits, #2))
“
The underlying notion of a world where the sane is insane
”
”
Erica Spindler (Killer Takes All (Stacy Killian, #2))
“
Levi and I live in the same world, but we see things very differently. I guess it would be boring if we all had the same view.
”
”
Stacy McAnulty (The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl)
“
One loyal friend,” Euripides reminds us, “is worth ten thousand relatives.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra)
“
Faith aside, witchcraft served an eminently useful purpose. The aggravating, the confounding, the humiliating all dissolved in its cauldron. It made sense of the unfortunate and the eerie, the sick child and the rancid butter along with the killer cat. What else, shrugged one husband, could have caused the black and blue marks on his wife’s arm?
”
”
Stacy Schiff (The Witches: Salem, 1692)
“
Because with that one look, I knew you were the girl who could ruin me.
”
”
Stacy Borel (Bender (The Core Four, #1))
“
There’s no such thing as repayment or scorecards in friendship. If you need me, tell me, and I’ll be there no matter what.
”
”
Stacy Borel (Bender (The Core Four, #1))
“
They asked me what I wanted to get out of this experience and I said me.
”
”
Barbra Annino (Opal Fire (A Stacy Justice Mystery, #2))
“
We all apologize, or fail to, in our own ways.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (The Witches: Salem, 1692)
“
Apollodorus came, Caesar saw, Cleopatra conquered,
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra)
“
No one dances while he is sober. Unless he happens to be a lunatic. -Cicero
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
Don’t be afraid of numbers. Use them to compute your solutions. Look at the world as it is intended.
”
”
Stacy McAnulty (The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl)
“
If you need something to help you get off, I'd prefer it if you used me.
”
”
Stacy Borel (Ever Enough (Ever Enough, #1))
“
she’s blinded by his douchesparkle.
”
”
Staci Hart (With a Twist (Bad Habits, #1))
“
I had come to think of him as a library book, entering my life on rented time. Something that I could enjoy for a few hours, curled up and comfortable, devouring as much of him as possible before our time was up. And because he wasn't mine, I couldn't scribble in the margins or write my name on the spine; I couldn't leave my mark on him in any discernable way.
”
”
Stacy Willingham (All the Dangerous Things)
“
The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
ALONE
One of my new housemates, Stacy, wants to write a story about an astronaut. In his story the astronaut is wearing a suit that keeps him alive by recycling his fluids. In the story the astronaut is working on a space station when an accident takes place, and he is cast into space to orbit the earth, to spend the rest of his life circling the globe. Stacy says this story is how he imagines hell, a place where a person is completely alone, without others and without God. After Stacy told me about his story, I kept seeing it in my mind. I thought about it before I went to sleep at night. I imagined myself looking out my little bubble helmet at blue earth, reaching toward it, closing it between my puffy white space-suit fingers, wondering if my friends were still there. In my imagination I would call to them, yell for them, but the sound would only come back loud within my helmet. Through the years my hair would grow long in my helmet and gather around my forehead and fall across my eyes. Because of my helmet I would not be able to touch my face with my hands to move my hair out of my eyes, so my view of earth, slowly, over the first two years, would dim to only a thin light through a curtain of thatch and beard.
I would lay there in bed thinking about Stacy's story, putting myself out there in the black. And there came a time, in space, when I could not tell whether I was awake or asleep. All my thoughts mingled together because I had no people to remind me what was real and what was not real. I would punch myself in the side to feel pain, and this way I could be relatively sure I was not dreaming. Within ten years I was beginning to breathe heavy through my hair and my beard as they were pressing tough against my face and had begun to curl into my mouth and up my nose. In space, I forgot that I was human. I did not know whether I was a ghost or an apparition or a demon thing.
After I thought about Stacy's story, I lay there in bed and wanted to be touched, wanted to be talked to. I had the terrifying thought that something like that might happen to me. I thought it was just a terrible story, a painful and ugly story. Stacy had delivered as accurate a description of a hell as could be calculated. And what is sad, what is very sad, is that we are proud people, and because we have sensitive egos and so many of us live our lives in front of our televisions, not having to deal with real people who might hurt us or offend us, we float along on our couches like astronauts moving aimlessly through the Milky Way, hardly interacting with other human beings at all.
”
”
Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality)
“
One thing that pisses me off royally is hearing drug companies denounced as the devil. I don't like giant corporations (or, in the words of Spalding Gray, "the big indifferent machine") any more than anyone else, but I really don't like wanting to kill myself. A person who denounces psychopharmaceuticals based on a political agenda is a person who has never lain crumpled in a ball in the closet, sobbing uncontrollably, face covered in Sharpie, throat raw from induced vomiting. Accordingly, that person should be thankful and shut the hell up.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
You were worried about me?” “Of course I was, buddy. I would never have forgiven myself if something had happened. You didn’t think I’d be worried about you?” “No. I didn’t think you cared.” Dad looks sad. And surprised. I’m not sure why. “Really, buddy? You didn’t think I cared?” “No.” “Well, I do. A lot.” “Okay.” “I guess I need to do a better job of showing you.” “Yes. You could do a better job.” Dad laughs. And he hugs me again.
”
”
Stacy Kramer (From What I Remember...)
“
The tattoo artist inflicts pain and I take it. With each breath I count to one again. Each inhale, each exhale, time passes in the smallest of pieces, and pieces still smaller than those.
This is how you count a life. This is how you go through it. Each second of hurt is a second that's already passed, one you never have to go through again. I have counted in pieces that small, when walking from the bed to the fridge seemed an insurmountable goal. I have counted my breaths, my steps, my eye-blinks, my hiccups, the tiny pulse in my thumb. And when I started getting tattooed, two of the things I used to need were gone: to write on myself, and to find irrelevant things to count. A second of intense pain is the most profound thing you can live through. And another, and another, and another, and then you know what it is to feel, and to struggle through that feeling one small agonizing increment at a time, and if you know that, you know what it is to live with mental illness.
”
”
Stacy Pershall (Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl)
“
A capable, clear-eyed sovereign, she knew how to build a fleet, suppress an insurrection, control a currency, alleviate a famine. An eminent Roman general vouched for her grasp of military affairs. Even at a time when women rulers were no rarity she stood out, the sole female of the ancient world to rule alone and to play a role in Western affairs. She was incomparably richer than anyone else in the Mediterranean. And she enjoyed greater prestige than any other woman of her age..... Cleopatra descended from a long line of murderers and faithfully upheld the family tradition but was, for her time and place, remarkably well behaved. She nonetheless survives as a wanton temptress, not the last time a genuinely powerful woman has been transmuted into a shamelessly seductive one.
”
”
Stacy Schiff
“
When I was in London in 2008, I spent a couple hours hanging out at a pub with a couple of blokes who were drinking away the afternoon in preparation for going to that evening's Arsenal game/riot. Take away their Cockney accents, and these working-class guys might as well have been a couple of Bubbas gearing up for the Alabama-Auburn game. They were, in a phrase, British rednecks. And this is who soccer fans are, everywhere in the world except among the college-educated American elite. In Rio or Rome, the soccer fan is a Regular José or a Regular Giuseppe. [...] By contrast, if an American is that kind of Regular Joe, he doesn't watch soccer. He watches the NFL or bass fishing tournaments or Ultimate Fighting. In an American context, avid soccer fandom is almost exclusively located among two groups of people (a) foreigners—God bless 'em—and (b) pretentious yuppie snobs. Which is to say, conservatives don't hate soccer because we hate brown people. We hate soccer because we hate liberals.
”
”
Robert Stacy McCain
“
To think that this is my twentieth birthday, and that I've left my teens behind me forever," said Anne, who was curled up on the hearth-rug with Rusty in her lap, to Aunt Jamesina who was reading in her pet chair. They were alone in the living room. Stella and Priscilla had gone to a committee meeting and Phil was upstairs adorning herself for a party.
"I suppose you feel kind of sorry," said Aunt Jamesina. "The teens are such a nice part of life. I'm glad I've never gone out of them myself."
Anne laughed.
"You never will, Aunty. You'll be eighteen when you should be a hundred. Yes, I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws."
"So's everybody's," said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. "Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line. Don't worry over it, Anne. Do your duty by God and your neighbor and yourself, and have a good time. That's my philosophy and it's always worked pretty well.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3))
“
When a man loves his woman, he’ll turn himself inside out to make her happy. He’ll cherish her until she knows she’s cherished. He’ll never stop working on creating a safe haven for her and the children they’ll one day have, because even a king, if he’s smart, works his ass off to protect his queen. He watches for what makes her smile and for what makes her frown, and he never forgets the difference between the two. He’ll do whatever it takes to convince her that she’s his greatest treasure, and he’ll guard her with his every thought and word and action, because to lose her would be to lose his world. If she’s having a bad day where she’s feeling exhausted or sick or not pretty or whatever, it’s her man’s privilege to look her right in her gorgeous ice-chip blue eyes and tell her ‘I’m the luckiest man in the world to be with you, beautiful, and that’s a fact I’ll never forget.’ That’s how I believe a man should treat his woman, so that’s how I plan on treating you for the rest of our lives.
”
”
Stacy Gail (Boom)
“
We’re here to help ease you through the labor process. The mainstream media and health organizations feed you an endless supply of fear and paranoia, but the truth is that childbirth does not have to be a painful experience. Today we will start our journey to a joyful and pleasurable labor. These three classes will help you refocus your negative feelings, drawing in serenity and pushing out fear.”
“Are we in a breathing class or signing up for a cult?” Tucker whispers.
Cult. Definitely cult.
“Partners, helpers, move into position behind the mama.”
“I already hate this woman,” I hiss as he crouches behind me.
“Because she called you mama or because she says it’s not a painful experience?”
A man a few mats down raises his hand. “Where should we put our hands?”
“Great question, Mark.”
Oh God, she remembers all our names.
“During labor, the appropriate position will be the lower back, but for today, we’re concentrating on relaxation, so please place your hands on your partner’s shoulders.”
Next to me, one expectant mother is taking copious notes, as if Stacy in the peasant skirt is the oracle of laborhood, speaking the ten commandments of birthing.
“If she says, ‘There’s nothing to fear but fear itself,’ we’re out of here,” I say a little too loudly.
The gunner and her equally serious partner turn around to glare at me. A burble of laughter threatens to escape. Can we get arrested for disturbing the peace in a breathing class
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Goal (Off-Campus, #4))
“
Cleopatra moreover came of age in a country that entertained a singular definition of women’s roles. Well before her and centuries before the arrival of the Ptolemies, Egyptian women enjoyed the right to make their own marriages. Over time their liberties had increased, to levels unprecedented in the ancient world. They inherited equally and held property independently. Married women did not submit to their husbands’ control. They enjoyed the right to divorce and to be supported after a divorce. Until the time an ex-wife’s dowry was returned, she was entitled to be lodged in the house of her choice. Her property remained hers; it was not to be squandered by a wastrel husband. The law sided with the wife and children if a husband acted against their interests. Romans marveled that in Egypt female children were not left to die; a Roman was obligated to raise only his first-born daughter. Egyptian women married later than did their neighbors as well, only about half of them by Cleopatra’s age. They loaned money and operated barges. They served as priests in the native temples. They initiated lawsuits and hired flute players. As wives, widows, or divorcées, they owned vineyards, wineries, papyrus marshes, ships, perfume businesses, milling equipment, slaves, homes, camels. As much as one third of Ptolemaic Egypt may have been in female hands.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra)