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“Democracy or reading, democracy of space: our public library tradition, wherever we live in the wide world, was incredibly hard-won for us by the generations before us and ought to be protected, not just for ourselves but in the name of every generation after us.”
― Ali Smith, Public Library and Other Stories

“[In Georgia] A cheerful anarchy reigned.”
― Colin Thubron, Among the Russians: Vivid and Poetic Travel Writing on a 10,000-Mile Journey Through Late Soviet Culture and History

“EJ knew she was solidly middle class, and she liked to think she was pretty sophisticated: she played piano, spoke French, and even embroidered a little—like accomplished ladies in old novels. But every so often someone or something at Longbourn would make her feel like the poor country cousin.”
― Eden Appiah-Kubi, The Bennet Women

“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