The Gentleman's Gambit Quotes

“I want to roll up on a bed and read a romantic novel and not think.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“If I were the only person in the world,” she said to the ceiling, “how would I even know I was a woman? Who would tell me? Who would make me? I would just be me. Why can’t I just be me?” The earl was quiet for a moment. “An interesting hypothesis,” he then allowed. “But no one is ever just themselves.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“I object to this notion that it would be my highest purpose, or my only purpose. Because I don’t think it is. I think that I . . . I matter. A woman matters, married or not, children or no children. I matter, just as I am, right now. I’m a whole human being.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“I think that I . . . I matter. A woman matters, married or not, children or no children. I matter, just as I am, right now. I’m a whole human being.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Do you know how a tree changes shape to grow around an obstruction ?' she asked, her voice hollow. 'How it develops an unnatural bent, or ugly bulges ?'
'I have seen these trees, yes.'
'I'm wondering how misshapen I am,' she whispered. 'I wonder how bent out of shape I am from these attempts to exist around some fear, instead of just growing, straight and up, as I should have.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Support your sisters, regardless of their position in life, and tell them to use their rights—to receive an education, to keep their earnings, to find a husband who treats them as an equal, or to remain single.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“It began with her thoughts on pregnancy, how the very same process in any other context would be the stuff of gothic novels: a woman of sound mind had to watch her belly swell to grotesque proportions, knowing that if all went well, it would merely end in pain. Meanwhile, everyone told the beleaguered woman to be overjoyed. There was a wrongness to this, and a passivity which confirmed for all the world to see that at their most uniquely female activity, women truly were just vessels, to be filled and stretched out by the needs of others.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“There have been other incidents throughout my life that have caused me grief, and now I can't stop wondering how bad they truly were,' she said. 'In the carriage, I kept thinking, I kept thinking about how a part of me has wallowed in sorrow for years. How many decisions have I made because I was afraid of some dreadful thing that in the end would have never come to pass ? How often have I said yer or no to something just to avoid a certain type of pain ? I don't think I'm a coward; sometimes I even think I'm brave. But now I looke at myself and I think, who would I be, today, had I never been so needlessly afraid ? I'm... pathetically sensitive.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“For a moment, their gazes clung and probed deeper. It was the sort of connection that left a piece of insight behind in each other, a deepening of mutual understanding that couldn’t be undone.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“The trouble is, Mr. Khoury, that people aren’t interested in either logic or facts, not when it’s at cross-purposes with their convenience and convictions.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“. . .two versions of my homeland will begin to exist, one that is built on the myths of my memories, and the real place, which keeps moving forward without me”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“There was a wrongness to this, and a passivity which confirmed for all the world to see that at their most uniquely female activity, women truly were just vessels, to be filled and stretched out by the needs of others”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Catriona sat quietly in her chair, her body tense. I don’t want to, she thought. I want to just not see people for a while; I want to roll up on a bed and read a romantic novel and not think.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Yes,” he murmured, a glowing sensation spreading in his chest. “Show me what feels good for you.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Her fingers were slender and straight, and the backs of her hands looked unnaturally smooth as though she spent all her time indoors. Her fingernails were noticeably short, though, and ink smudged the side of her middle finger like a bruise. There was a bump, from always holding a pen. In its own way, it was a working woman’s hand.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Let me be clear: if you found a love like that, I would expect you to marry. I would expect it for your own good. But as long as our finances permit it, I could never ask you to yoke yourself to a pale imitation of what your mother and I had. I don’t expect it of myself, either. Certainly not when we could be writing books instead.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“A woman in love does foolish things. She overlooks things. She explains things away. She likes to help, to make you love her more.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“If I were the only person in the world,” she said to the ceiling, “how would I even know I was a woman? Who would tell me? Who would make me? I would just be me. Why can’t I just be me?”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“You seem amused, Mr. Khoury--I assure you I took learning the language quite seriously."
His smile widened. "I just wondered," he said, "is it very lonely, being so clever?”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“I rolled my eyes. "You're such a pessimist."
"Realist," he corrected.
"A glass-half-empty sort of guy."
"No, I'm a the-liquid-could-be-poisoned sort of guy.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“We will not do this again," he said.
They took measure of each other's damp faces and turbulent eyes, and without any more words being exchanged they both knew that they would absolutely do this again.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Watching him speak in the reception room had been devastating. She hadn't realized how much she fancied him until she had felt hidden hopes shatter inside her chest. Even numbed by Scotch, she still felt the sting of the cuts. She had misread him - he was nothing like the crushes of her past. He wasn't just layers of sunshine. He knew pain, and he articulated it. Behind his easy smile lay the vast landscape of a serious, inquisitive disposition, and an urge had gripped her to crawl into him to see... everything. She suspected he could follow into the black depths of the human mind but withdraw again before he became lost. A unicorn, light and dark, humorous yet sincere.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“If only one could inoculate against stupid emotions as one could inoculate against a virus. Her brows pulled together. She scraped her nail over the scar, then pressed it slightly. Perhaps one could do that. Could she temper her erratic reactions to nerve-racking encounters with small, deliberate doses of exposure ? Because acting like a thunderstruck cow was costing her both her nerves and her dignity.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Reproduction isn’t what sets us apart from animals,” Catriona said. “Every wild creature multiplies and raises its young.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“a woman’s destiny was to react to surroundings, not to actively set her own path.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“a woman of sound mind had to watch her belly swell to grotesque proportions, knowing that if all went well, it would merely end in pain. Meanwhile, everyone told the beleaguered woman to be overjoyed. There was a wrongness to this, and a passivity which confirmed for all the world to see that at their most uniquely female activity, women truly were just vessels, to be filled and stretched out by the needs of others.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“It’s the foundation of our Latin alphabet, too. If you turn our A upside down, you can still see the head of an ox with horns.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“Leaders wage war over power,” Catriona said, unmoved. “The fairy tales they spin to rally the common soldier is of course quite another matter.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit

“And what was marriage, and the inevitable family life, other than an entrapment in a small, crowded space with erratic noise patterns? Even if all the laws of Britain changed in a woman’s favor, she would still be stuck inside her skin.”
― Evie Dunmore, The Gentleman's Gambit