A Transcontinental Affair Quotes

“It was short, but that, thankfully, was the nature of the telegram. Hattie was vaguely aware that she had become the heroine of two diverging stories. In one story, she meets a woman on a train, and nothing is the same; in the other, she travels by train to meet Leland Durand in Sacramento, and nothing has changed. She had chosen to live the second story. But was it really a choice?”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“Still looking up, Hattie frowned. “Why would God write a message and then not allow us to understand it?” Louisa thought about it. “Perhaps that’s what truth is: not what He reveals but what He conceals.” “Then how can we know it’s the truth?” Louisa smiled. “That’s my point.”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“Two-spirited beings are thought to be uniquely endowed by the Great Creator, and they’re held in the highest esteem. Some are clairvoyant as well. At least, that’s what the Lakota and other tribes believe.”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“Winkdé is a Lakota word, though different tribes have different names for it. It is the name they give to someone who feels, who is . . .” He opened his hands. “Who is?” Julia encouraged him. “Who feels himself to be both man and woman. Not merely physically but spiritually, as it were. These plains Indians whose land we now traverse take the view that there exist at least four genders: Men, men-women, women-men, and women.”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“Genuine interest usually leads to knowledge.”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“made”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“They coughed, sneezed, and spoke too loudly; the men spat into the brass spittoons. Why could men not manage to swallow their own spit?”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“Genuine interest usually leads to knowledge. Don’t you find that to be so?” Julia shook her head. “I’ve seen such interest in men. But never, I confess, in a woman.” Hattie set her fork down and turned to Julia with a look of alarm. “I hope you don’t believe that women are so congenitally deformed as to lack curiosity.” “Oh, I didn’t mean that.” Julia blushed.”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair

“Hattie always had to know the “why” of everything. Not merely why the sky was blue but why steel was stronger than iron and why some currents flowed east when others flowed west.”
― Jodi Daynard, A Transcontinental Affair