The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

Because women don't have to be men's equals to be considered contenders; they have to be better. That's the lie of it all. You have to be better to prove yourself worthy of being equal.

You deserve to be here. You deserve to exist. You deserve to take up space in this world of men.

Everyone has heard stories of women like us—cautionary tales, morality plays, warnings of what will befall you if you are a girl too wild for the world, a girl who asks too many questions or wants too much. If you set off into the world alone. Everyone has heard stories of women like us, and now we will make more of them.

It is not a failure to readjust my sails to fit the waters I find myself in.

You're trying to play a game designed by men. You'll never win, because the deck is stacked and marked, and also you've been blindfolded and set on fire. You can work hard and believe in yourself and be the smartest person in the room and you'll still get beat by the boys who haven't two cents to rub together. So if you can't win the game, you have to cheat. You operate outside the walls they've built to fence you in. You rob them in the dark, while they're drunk on spirits you offered them. Poison their waters and drink only wine.

I'm learning there is no one way for life to be lived, no one way to be strong or brave or kind or good. Rather there are many people doing the best they can with the heart they are given and the hand they are dealt. Our best is all we can do, and all we can hold on to is each other.

The room is warm and smells like dust, and just the presence of so many books makes it easier to breathe. It’s remarkable how being around books, even those you’ve never read, can have a calming effect, like walking into a crowded party and finding it full of people you know.

Your beauty is not a tax you are required to pay to take up space in this world.

No one calls a girl spirited or opinionated or intimidating or any of those words you can pretend are complimentary and means it to be. They’re all just different ways of calling her a bitch.

In the company of women like this— sharp-edged as raw diamonds but with soft hands and hearts, not strong in spite of anything but powerful because of everything— I feel invincible. Every chink and rut and battering wind has made us tough and brave and impossible to strike down. We are mountains— or perhaps temples, with foundations that could outlast time itself.

Percy sees me off at the door with more affirming words but no hug or even a pat upon the shoulder. Thank god for friends who learn to speak to you in your own language rather than making you learn theirs.

Every time you rolled your eyes and every little smart remark you made about how silly it was for girls to care about their looks. You refused to let me--or anyone!--like books and silks. Outdoors and cosmetics. You stopped taking me seriously when I stopped being the kind of woman you thought I had to be to be considered intelligent and strong. All those things you say make men take women less seriously--I don't think it's men; it's you. You're not better than any other woman because you like philosophy better than parties and don't give a fig about the company of gentlemen, or because you wear boots instead of heels and don't set your hair in curls.

And thank God, because I don't want simple. I do not want easy or small or uncomplicated. I want my life to be messy and ugly and wicked and wild, and I want to feel it all.

I do not need reasons to exist. I do not need to justify the space I take up in this world.

I have spent so long building up my fortress and learning to tend it all myself, because if I didn’t feel I needed anyone, then I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there. I couldn’t be neglected if I was everything to myself.

[...] I am a wildflower and will stand against the gales. Rare and uncultivated, difficult to find, impossible to forget.

I don’t know what you’re referencing, madam,” the chairman says, his voice raised over mine. “I’m talking about menstruation, sir!” I shout in return. It’s like I set the hall on fire, manifested a venomous snake from thin air, also set that snake on fire, and then threw it at the board. The men all erupt into protestations and a fair number of horrified gasps. I swear one of them actually swoons at the mention of womanly bleeding.

I think I want a house of my own," I start, the words a discovery as they leave my mouth. "Something small, so I don't have much housework, but enough room for a proper library. I want a lot of books. And I wouldn't mind a good old dog to walk with me. And a bakery I go to every morning where they know my name.

There is a unique sort of agony to entering a party alone.

It would be so much easier if I did not want to know everything so badly. If I did not want so badly to be reliant upon no soul by myself.

And you should not be frightened of the darkness, but instead be sure that the most frightening thing in it is you.

Thank God for friends who learn to speak to you in your own language rather than making you learn theirs.

I like curling my hair and twirling in skirts with ruffles, and I like how Max looks with that big pink bow on. And that doesn't mean I'm not still smart and capable and strong.

I do not want to know things, I want to understand things. I want to answer every question ever posed me. I want to leave no room for anyone to doubt me.

How can you know that if you've never had anyone?" "How do you know you want to?" I reply. "I've never drunk octopus ink, but I don't feel the need to. Or like I'm missing anything in not having tasted it.

You are a shield and spear to all the things you love. I'm glad to be among them.

In the company of women like this - sharp-edged as raw diamonds but with soft hands and hearts, not strong in spite of anything but powerful because of everything - I feel invincible.

Maybe everyone has hunger like this - impossible, insatiable, but all-consuming in spite of it all. Maybe the desert dreams of spilling rivers, valleys of a view. Maybe that hunger will one day pass. But if it does, I will be left shelled and halved and hollowed.

Of course, the moment I get around other females my own age, I end up socializing with the dog.

There are many things that make this book fiction, but the roles women play within it are not. The women of the eighteenth century were met with opposition. They had to fight endlessly. Their work was silenced, their contributions ignored, and many of their stories are forgotten today. Nevertheless, they persisted.