Amy

“Democracies work best—and survive longer—where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms. Two basic norms have preserved America’s checks and balances in ways we have come to take for granted: mutual toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives.”
― Steven Levitsky, How Democracies Die

“Indeed, Goodman Endecott, Lord help you, all of you, this day. For you are about to execute an innocent woman. You are about to execute an innocent woman for the crime of being a woman, a woman who lived fully, spoke plainly, listened intently, observed acutely, intuited wisely, loved passionately. I am too much for this world of yours, this Jerusalem upon a hill.” I spat upon the ground. “I am a force that makes you quake!”
― Andrea Catalano, The First Witch of Boston

“Meals were the daily bane of my existence; not so much the constant work of picking, cleaning, chopping, cooking—though those activities were fairly baneful in themselves—but primarily the never-ending chore of remembering what we had on hand, and balancing the effort required to make it edible against the knowledge of what might spoil if we didn’t eat it right away.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Go Tell the Bees that I Am Gone