The Alice Network

by Kate Quinn

Boys got to do whatever they wanted, and girls got to sit around looking pretty.

“I don’t want to just be pretty when I grow up. I want to do something different. Write a book. Swim the Channel. Go on safari and shoot a lion—”

I might be a failure at a lot of things, but I was good at hope.

What did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done?

It’s very freeing, to care for no one’s opinion but your own.”

My feet might be heavy now, but maybe someday I could dance my way out from under the cloud.

She finished as she had lived, a soldier.

“What I mean is, it’s not a matter of age. There are boys aged fifty, and men aged fifteen. It’s all in what they do, not how old they are.” He paused. “A boy messes up with a lass, and he slinks off without fixing anything. A man makes a mistake, he fixes it. He apologizes.”

Girls weren’t supposed to let silence fall; you had to keep the conversation going so he wouldn’t think you were a sad sack. Be interesting! Be sparkling! Or he won’t ask you out again!

“I’ll ring you tomorrow.” “Boys never call.” “Men call.”

Who cared about praise when the failures were so much bigger than the victories?

She was a damaged wreck of a woman with a foul mouth and destroyed hands and no innocence at all.

“Bullets, boredom, or brandy—that’s how people like us go, because God knows we aren’t made for peace.”

I shall come back to your bedroom and silently glide toward you with the shadows of the night . . . I shall give you kisses frigid as the moon and the caresses of a serpent that slithers around a grave.’”