Nancy

“She could feel herself pressing the details into memory, saving them like dried flowers kept in a spinster's chest, relics of a past that might have been, of a future that never was.”
― Lauren Willig, The English Wife

“I
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, though which I run,
And do run still: though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For, I have more.

II
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin? And, made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year, or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

III
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thy self, that at my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more.”
― John Donne, The Complete English Poems

“People froze you in place. More important, you froze yourself, often into a person in whom you truly had no interest.”
― Anna Quindlen

“Most people want to be led. But suppose they choose the wrong leader? They end up with the Donner party.”
― Louise Penny, The Long Way Home