Meredith > Recent Status Updates

Violet: I am glad to be able to do that. But that is what we women are trained for -- to give to others, to make others comfortable, whatever we feel for ourselves. It can be tiring, thankless, to be so generous all of the time.

Mr. Waterman: Most girls we hire will marry and leave. Spinsters are more reliable, but they are likely to be off looking after their aged parents.
Violet: Perhaps you would be better off hiring older widows who don't plan to remarry or men.
Mr. Waterman: Men are unlikely to want to type all day. It's a feminine occupation, but a widow ... there's a thought.

de Becker: To be freer of fear and yet still get its gift, there are three goals to strive for. They aren't easy to reach, but it's worth trying:
1) When you feel fear, listen.
2) When you don't feel fear, don't manufacture it.
3) If you find yourself creating worry, explore and discover why.

de Becker: Only human beings can look directly at something, have all the information they need to make an accurate prediction, perhaps even momentarily make the prediction, and then say that it isn't so.

de Becker: Conditional rejections are not rejections -- they are discussions.

de Becker: Believing that others will react as we would is the single most dangerous myth of intervention.

If someone receives a suspicious unexpected package in the mail and makes the joke that it's probably a bomb, don't open it.

de Becker: Remember, the nicest guy, the guy with no self-serving agenda whatsoever, the one who wants nothing from you, won't approach you at all. You are not comparing the man who approaches you to all men, the vast majority of whom have no sinister intent. Instead, you are comparing him to other men who make unsolicited approaches to women alone, or to other men who don't listen when you say no.

de Becker: At the core, men are afraid women will laugh at them while, at the core, women are afraid men will [rape and] kill them.

de Becker: A woman alone who needs assistance is actually far better off choosing someone and asking for help, as opposed to waiting for an unsolicited approach. The person you choose is nowhere near as likely to bring you hazard as the person who chooses you. That's because the possibility that you'll inadvertently select a predatory criminal for whom you are the right victim type is very remote.

Aderin-Pocock: I have always thought that [En-hedu-ana's] job and title sounded really cool, so if any city is looking for an astronomer prietess of the Moon goddess, please let me know, and I will send my resume.

"[Jane Austen] died aged forty-one with no husband or children, only a devoted sister. Violet didn't even gave that, and she certainly didn't have several novels to her name. She had just three years to catch up with Miss Austen in terms of accomplishments."

Dorothy: It is important to make one’s mark. It may be the only mark we make. Sic parvis magna.

“[Violet] herself had become less judgmental, however, for she had discovered that when you were a single woman living on your own on a small salary, background meant little.”

Violet: A spinster's uncertainty. It is always there, underlining everything we do.

Aderin-Pocock: There is no actual dark side of the moon -- but there is a whole hemisphere that we cannot view from our position here on earth.

"Whenever she left the house, she seemed to spend money -- just little bits here and there, but it added up. Living was a constant expense. Violet could no longer put aside any money to save. She had to learn to make do and do without."
Me: I hear you, girl.

Anton: No one helped you without getting something out of you in return.

[Mel] was a tattoo-rubber when he was thinking about something else.

Grandpa Zach: Is reality simply a dream we share? Will sharing my story change what is real? Alas, I will never know.

Grandpa Zach: Every possible future exists, and we all exist within a great tangled and frayed tapestry of potentiality. There are many worlds -- as many worlds as there are thoughts ... The question is, once one world becomes two, can the two worlds ever be brought back together?

Stuey's mom: Sometimes secrets are secrets for a reason.

Stuey's mom: The past doesn't go away. It lives on in people's hearts. We all pay the price for the sins of our ancestors.

Stuey: My grandpa wrote a book. It's called the Book of Secrets. Nobody has ever read it.
Elly Rose: If somebody read it, it wouldn't be a book of secrets anymore.

Grandpa Zach: Hatred is a powerful force. Hatred combined with lies and secrets can break the world.