“When all else fails, give up and go to the library.”

~ Stephen King, 11/22/63

“Sarah wondered what it could be like, to live like this - life as a country dance, where everything is lovely, and graceful, and ordered, and every single turn is preordained, and not a foot may be set outside the measure. Not like Sarah's own out-in-all-weathers haul and trudge, the wind howling and blustery, the creeping flowers in the hedgerows, the sudden sunshine.”

~ Jo Baker, Longbourn

“I was beginning to understand something about normality. Normality wasn't normal. It couldn't be. If normality were normal, everybody could leave it alone. They could sit back and let normality manifest itself. But people--and especially doctors--had doubts about normality. They weren't sure normality was up the job. And so they felt inclined to give it a boost.”

~ Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“And that phrase - 'sleeping like a baby.' Some blonde said it blithely on the subway the other day. I wanted to lie down next to her and scream for five hours in her ear.”

~ Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.”

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.”

~ Barbara Pym, Excellent Women