Kirsti

“They knew that you breathed and you slept and you worked, but they didn’t know that you read. Such a thing was beyond comprehension. They thought that in your spare time you sat and gazed into space, or looked at Peg’s Paper or the Crimson Circle. You could almost see them reporting you to their friends. ‘Margaret’s a good cook, but unfortunately she reads. Books, you know.”
― Margaret Powell, Below Stairs

“The backlash against feminism remains savage, strong, and omnipresent, but it is not winning. The world has changed profoundly, and it needs to change far more.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

“The monk in the grip of acedia would find it difficult or impossible to read. Looking away from his book, he might try to distract himself with gossip but would more likely glance in disgust at his surroundings and at his fellow monks. He would feel that things were better somewhere else, that he was wasting his life, that everything was stale and pointless, that he was suffocating.”
― Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

“Violators of the edict were threatened with eternal damnation and a fine of 10 ducats.”
― Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern