Jacquelyn Benson

“What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box: A Sherlock Holmes Short Story

“The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Women create an idealized, hopeful vision for the future to inspire other women. Fiction and fantasy are the crucial first steps to changing the world.”
― Maya Rodale, Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained

“The best method, I believe, that can be adopted to correct a fondness for novels is to ridicule them; not indiscriminately, for then it would have little effect; but, if a judicious person, with some turn for humour, would read several to a young girl, and point out, both by tones and apt comparisons with pathetic incidents and heroic characters in history, how foolishly and ridiculously they caricatured human nature, just opinions might be substituted instead of romantic sentiments.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman