Home > Work > A Dangerous Mourning (William Monk, #2)
1 " If we can still surmount what is natural and believe what we wish to believe, in spite of the force of evidence, then for a while at least we are masters of our fate, and we can paint the world we want. "
― Anne Perry , A Dangerous Mourning (William Monk, #2)
2 " Monk had a brief vision of what it must be like to be a women on her own, obliged to work at pleasing people because your acceptance, perhaps even your financial survival, depended upon it. There must be hundreds - thousands - of petty accommodations, suppressions of your own beliefs and opinions because they would not be what someone else wished to hear. What a constant humiliation, like a burning blister on the heel which hurt with every step.And on the other hand, what a desperate loneliness for a man if he ever realized he was alway being told not what she really thought or felt but what she believed he wanted to hear. Would he then ever trust anything as real, or of value? "
3 " But that horror had brought out the strength in her, as it had in so many other women. "
4 " Self-pity does not become you, nor does it serve any purpose, "
5 " We should respect not only the facts but the law. If we do not, then we lay ourselves open to every man’s judgment of what may be true or false; and a belief of guilt will become the same thing as proof. There must be something above individual judgment, however passionately felt, or we become barbarous again.” “Of course he may be guilty,” she said very quietly. "
6 " Never, in any circumstance, should you raise your voice, or try to assert your opinions in the hearing of gentlemen, and do not attempt to appear clever or strong-minded; it is dangerous, and makes them extremely uncomfortable. "
7 " Nothing at all, except that he is human, and by hanging him we diminish ourselves as well. "
8 " see nothing attractive in behaving like a fool when you don’t have to. "
9 " They’re empty, insecure alone; they only feel real when other people listen to them and take notice. "
10 " basilisk. "
11 " what it must be like to be a woman on her own, obliged to work at pleasing people because your acceptance, perhaps even your financial survival, depended upon it. There must be hundreds—thousands—of petty accommodations, suppressions of your own beliefs and opinions because they would not be what someone else wished to hear. "
12 " How do you forgive someone for not being what you wanted them to be, or what you thought they were? Especially when they are not sorry—perhaps they don’t even understand?” “Or again, perhaps they do?” Hester suggested. “And how do they forgive us for having expected too much of them, instead of looking to see what they really were, and loving that? "
13 " I like the people. They have imagination to take them out of the commonplace, to forget the defeats of reality and feed on the triumphs of dreams. "
14 " If we can still surmount what is natural and believe what we wish to believe, in spite of the force of evidence, then for a while at least we are masters of our fate, and we can paint the world we want. I "
15 " And I like their humor,” Septimus went on. “They know how to laugh at themselves and each other—they like to laugh, they don’t see any sin in it, or any danger to their dignity. They like to argue. They don’t feel it a mortal wound if anyone queries what they say, indeed they expect to be questioned. "
16 " And if they are forced to a new idea, they turn it over like a child with a toy. "
17 " he had no memory of ever having loved, let alone to such cost, and yet he knew without question that to care for any person or issue enough to sacrifice greatly for it was the surest sign of being wholly alive. "
18 " lacks the depth, or the courage, to feel anything deeply enough to pay for it. "
19 " To be beaten was one thing, to surrender was another—and intolerable. "
20 " I do not need anyone to lead me astray! I am perfectly capable of going on my own! "