Crocodile on the Sandbank (Amelia Peabody, #1)

by Elizabeth Peters

I had, as I have always had, purpose enough for two.

Papa preferred his languages dead. He was a devoted student of the past, and emerged from it only occasionally, when he would blink at me and express surprise at how I had grown since he last noticed my existence.

I could not endure a man who would let himself be ruled by me, and I would not endure a man who tried to rule me.

She was too kind, and too truthful. Both, I have found, are inconvenient character traits.

Watching his beaming face, hearing his jovial tones, I could understand why Mr. Dickens’ Scrooge found his jolly nephew so irritating.