Bea

“Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief—at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“times the girl offered her hand, her mother refused it. It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be one.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

“tell. My own sense is that one aided the other, as those who stand to gain from the manipulation of truth often prey on those bereft of critical thinking.”
― Maria Popova, Figuring

“That’s what I dislike most of all in people—cold irony. It’s a very cowardly attitude to mock or belittle everything, never be committed to anything, not feel tied to anything. Like an impotent man who can’t experience pleasure himself, but will do all he can to ruin it for others. Cold irony is Urizen’s basic weapon. The armaments of impotence. At the same time the ironists always have a world outlook that they proclaim triumphantly, though if one starts badgering and questioning them about the details, it turns out to consist of nothing but trivia and banalities.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead