The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows Quotes

“Time tumbled you forward, no matter how hard you fought to stay put.”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“Riots were a proud country tradition, and long practice had worn them into a comfortable pattern: you showed up, you shouted and waved a banner or two, you went home once you’d made your point. Perhaps you did a bit of conscientious liberating of property—Penelope remembered one such occasion, when the mob had seized Squire Theydon’s corn from a Sweden-bound ship. They had sold it at once to local farmers and villagers at traditional prices, they’d given the squire his profits afterward, and nobody at all had been hurt. It had all been very disciplined and neatly organized.”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“Good thing, too," Agatha muttered, making Penelope snort into her ale.”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“But she had to try and explain something: Griffin was looking at her too closely, and Penelope had never been very good at subtlety or subterfuge. “When I was young . . .” she began, swallowed hard, and held out her hand. Griffin gave her the brandy at once. Penelope took a long draft, and braced herself. “When I was young, the house was always full of people, all of whom were older and bigger and busier than me. So I got used to just . . . going along with someone else’s idea of what we ought to be doing at any moment. Didn’t matter whether it was my mother, my father, any of my siblings. Or later, the vicar or Joanna or Isabella. I found myself behaving a little differently, depending on who I was with and what made it easiest for them to overlook me, or be amused by me, or not ask me to leave. The more I loved someone, the more I worked to please them—and the harder it was for me when pleasing one person meant disappointing someone else.” Another flick of the switch, another moth into the box. Griffin’s mouth had gone somber, the lip of the flask resting thoughtfully against one lip. Penelope went on. “I wasn’t conscious of this for a long while, of course—and then I assumed it was something everyone did, if I thought about it at all. One by one, my siblings moved away. Owen died, then my parents. I started doing the bee circuit, as more and more families struggled to keep their homes. I got used to being on my own, to being myself. And then I married John.”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“How can you be happy if you aren’t certain where your next meal is coming from? How can you fight for justice if your hands are trapped in chains?”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“I am full up of fire and riddled with words like arrows, and no pleasing”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“A keeper is there to provide help, not to impose a human’s notion of order. Because as much as it looks like a monarchy, a hive does not depend on any individual bee, not even the queen—on her own, without her attendants or her drones or her daughters, she is nothing.”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“His sermons were as bland and easily digestible as porridge: you never could say you enjoyed them, exactly, but they seemed hygienic in some indefinable way. They made you feel good about being good without you having to do anything at all.”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

“While you see to the hives, I’ll be at the hall, setting the whole miserable place on fire in the name of thwarted, impossible love. Her breath rattled like a tinderbox in her lungs. As though one would offer arson instead of a bouquet, to win a lover’s heart. High crimes were probably better suited to a betrothal than a mere courting gift: you couldn’t just start burning things down in hopes the other person found it romantic. You’d want to be sure.”
― Olivia Waite, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows