“Stop shining your lantern in my face."
"It's such a lovely face.”
“He smiled. "I suppose I thought we'd have a madly impractical, terrifyingly modern sort of marriage. One based on love. Not to mention dangerous undertakings and hair's-breadth escapes from burning buildings, high ledges and exploding sewers."
"And bickering."
"Always that, yes."
"Assuming I want to marry at all."
"True. I know of no good way of forcing you to do anything."
"And you're mad enough to think it could work - one day?"
He cupped her face in his hands. His smile was so brilliant it seemed to illuminate the room. "I think it would be heaven."
She trembled, then. "You have a very strange idea of heaven."
"Kiss me and see.”
“I am madly, ridiculously, passionately in love with you. I don’t care about your past. Your race does nothing to change my feelings. I love you, you stubborn little fool. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, had a lamp shade on her head. Again.”
“He looked at her for a moment, amazed. "How did you know that? How can a servant girl like you understand so much?"
Because self-absorbed man-children are common as weeds, thought Mary. But she said, "I don't know, sir. I only guessed.”
“My dearest Mary,
Both my words and my conduct at our last meeting were ungentlemanly - born of haste and high emotion, rather than friendship and good judgement - and yet I cannot find it within me to apologize. I am glad I kissed you; glad to have revelled in your scent, your taste, the touch of your hands; glad, even, to have quarrelled with you because during those moments of anger, I was in your presence.
Mary, you are the most singular woman I know: intelligent, brave and honest, and I crave your friendship. I confess to only the haziest notion of what I ask, having never been friends with a woman before. My friendships are male and conventional; pleasant and without distinction. But a friendship with you would be a bright, new, rare thing - if you would do me the honour.
I expect that what I ask is impossible. But it is sweet to dream, Mary, and thus I tender one last, insolent, unapologetic request: write to me only if you can say yes.
Yours,
James”
“If you ever need to poison someone, do it with a bacon sandwich”
“The door was locked, but that didn’t deter him. He pulled her tight against him, her back against his chest, his breath loud and moist in her ear. His arm was locked about her waist — he was surprisingly strong, despite his doughy appearance — and he fumbled her skirts again. He wanted her to struggle. He wanted her to cry, to beg, to be terrified.”
“Getting back to the issue of the child," Tina said, harshing our buzz as visual, "I really think you should reconsider. He—"
The phone rang. She picked it up, glanced at the caller ID.
"We're kind of busy," I said, a little sharply. The phone was a whole thing between Tina and me.
"But—"
"If it's important, they'll call back."
"But it's your mother."
I practically snarled. The phone, the fucking phone! People used it the way they used to use the cat-o'-nine-tails. You had to drop everything and answer the fucking thing. And God help you if you were home and, for whatever reason, didn't answer. "But I called!" Yeah, it was convenient for you so you called. But I'm in the shit because it wasn't convenient for me to drop everything and talk to you, on the spot, for whatever you needed to talk about.”
“I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language.”
“I sat down and knitted for some time - my usual resource under discouraging circumstances.”
“Reality depends upon your mind alone.[34]”
“I sat on a toilet watching the water run thinking what an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile effort to recapture the comforts you wouldn’t have lost if you hadn’t left home in the first place.”
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