The Briar Club Quotes

“I sometimes think this country is an eternal battle between our best and our worst angels. Hopefully we're listening to the good angel more often that the bad one.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“I make it a policy never to believe more than a third of what men tell me,”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Happiness is a choice as much as anything. Or you could choose to be angry, and if you stay angry long enough, it will become comfortable, like an old robe. But eventually you’ll realize that old robe is all you've got, and there isn't anything else in the wardrobe that fits. And at that point, you’re just waiting to trade the robe for a shroud.” Grace March”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Life really hasn't been very fair to you, Pete. I'm sorry about that."
"Mom says life isn't fair, and that's all there is to it."
"Your mom says that to justify the fact that *she* isn't being fair to *you*," Mrs. Grace said calmly. "which is mostly what people mean when they say life isn't fair. It isn't, which is why people should endeavour to be *more* fair to one another, not less.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” but most of them definitely preferred a certain kind of immigrant: the kind with no accent.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Violent men who are also smart and strong are not completely lost causes. They can learn different ways, if they choose. It’s the weak ones who cause the most damage. Nothing wreaks havoc like a weak man—because they never learn, so they just go blithely on, leaving pain and wreckage behind them.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Opportunities were things that fell in your lap, but second chances had to be fought for.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“You know who we really posed a threat to? Herr Hitler,” said Reka. “Who do you think were some of the first people he rounded up and arrested? The Communists and Socialists, that’s who. The ones telling everyone he and his Brownshirts were a threat back when boys like you were saying America First and At least these fascists make the trains run on time! A little history for you, Mr. Adams.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Firebrands ask questions, and a nation where you can’t ask questions is one that is going downhill.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Most kingoms or nations just say 'we rule because we're strongest' or 'we rule because a god threw a thunderbolt and will it so.' We're the country who said 'Here we are; let's live by these principles and keep getting better at living up to them.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism . . .”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Pete’s Swedish Meatballs 3 cups diced stale bread, preferably sourdough 1/2 cup whole milk 1 pound ground beef 1 pound ground pork 1 pound ground lamb 1/2 teaspoon allspice 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1 tablespoon ground thyme Pinch of salt 1/2 cup finely minced white onion 1 egg 1 egg yolk 3 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper 2 tablespoons flour 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 cup white wine 1/2 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon soy sauce or anchovy paste Place the diced bread in a large mixing bowl, slowly add milk, and mix thoroughly, mashing until a slurry is produced. If necessary, add a dash of cream to achieve a smooth, porridge-like consistency. Add the ground beef, pork, lamb, allspice, garlic powder, nutmeg, thyme, and salt to the bowl with bread/milk mixture and stir to combine. Add the onion, egg, egg yolk, and pepper, and sprinkle on 1 tablespoon of the flour. Beat together until the texture is smooth and you can form meatballs with your hands without the mixture falling apart. Add a little more flour to bind if necessary, then refrigerate the meat mixture for 20 minutes. While the meat chills, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Reduce heat to low to prevent burning. Remove the meat mixture from the refrigerator and form it into 1- to 11/2-inch meatballs, using a large baking sheet as a landing zone. Place about 10 meatballs into the skillet and cook on medium-low, rotating meatballs in the butter to ensure browning on all sides. Once meatballs are browned and retaining their shape, cover the skillet with a lid and cook for an additional 20 minutes—uncovering every 5 minutes to stir briefly and add a splash of white wine if the skillet is looking dry, then re-cover. This will help the meatballs to steam and cook all the way through. Slice a meatball in half to test for doneness. If it’s firm to the touch and lightly pink inside, remove the rest from the skillet to a serving bowl and repeat steps 4 and 5 with the remaining meatballs. Meatballs will continue cooking after being removed from the heat. Once all the meatballs are cooked and transferred to the serving bowl, reduce the heat under the skillet to low. Scrape the bottom to remove browned bits, then add the remaining white wine, remaining butter, remaining flour, the heavy cream, and the soy sauce. Stir until smooth, cooking over low to medium-low heat until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Eat as a dinner party appetizer with lingonberry jam and plenty of toothpicks, or serve with buttered egg noodles or mashed potatoes as a main course, while listening to “I Wanna Be Loved” by the Andrews Sisters.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Claire obeyed, thinking that for the first time, she knew why Miss Haskell and Miss Wing were lifers here. Because for every McCarthy this country threw at you, it also threw a Margaret Chase Smith. And by god, when you found one, you backed her up because she was going to find herself in a lot of tight corners.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Nora thought of the Bill of Rights, which she saw in its case every day. “The law is not perfect, but it is perfectible. Scorn that and we’re spitting on our foundations.” “Don’t be pompous, Tipperary.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Who deserved to live here? Who deserved a second chance? Who deserved to call themselves a citizen of this big, flawed, complicated country?”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Maybe that was the other side effect of having survived starvation: it left you wanting to feed people, feed everyone, feed them and fix them. She hadn’t even realized it was what she was craving, back when she walked into a houseful of people who had nothing in common but an address, but who all needed feeding and fixing.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“I grew up in Boston. North End.” Bea twisted sideways to get around a cluster of men fiercely arguing batting averages. “You’re born within a hundred square miles of Fenway Park, hatred for the Yankees comes in with your mother’s milk.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Because when you called bullies to account, they weren’t likely to back down. They were more likely to put their hands around your neck and choke you.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“It’s the weak ones who cause the most damage. Nothing wreaks havoc like a weak man—because they never learn, so they just go blithely on, leaving pain and wreckage behind them.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Happiness is a choice as much as anything. Or you could choose to be angry, and if you stay angry long enough, it will become comfortable, like an old robe. But eventually you'll realize that old robe is all you've got, and there isn't anything else in the wardrobe that fits. And at that point, you're just waiting to trade the robe for a shroud—or at least, that's what I've always thought.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“We can always do better,” Nora said. “These papers acknowledged from the beginning that we weren’t good enough yet. ‘A more perfect union’—it’s right there in our foundations that we aren’t perfect, that we have more to strive for.” She grinned. “I know, I know. I sound preachy. But isn’t it fascinating, when you really think about it? Most kingdoms or nations just say, ‘we rule because we’re strongest’ or ‘we rule because a god threw a thunderbolt and willed it so.’ We’re the country who said, ‘Here we are; let’s live by these principles and keep getting better at living up to them.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“He does, and so do I.” Harland sipped at his glass. “You wouldn’t want Commies on your school board and in your neighborhood watch, would you?” “I wouldn’t mind a bit,” Reka said and had the pleasure of seeing Arlene’s beau choke on his sun tea. “I don’t think you know quite what you mean by that, Mrs. Muller,” Harland said. “The threat to our children—” “Oh, who cares about the children?” Reka cut him off, and she took pleasure doing it. The trouble with men like Harland Adams was that they hadn’t been interrupted enough whenever they started holding forth about the country, the law, the children. “Stop hiding behind the children. Children are in no danger from Communists, because most Communists are about as dangerous as garden snails. Just college boys who think quoting Marx and drinking vodka makes them rebels. Lock ’em up for boring people to death, but don’t lock ’em up for the children.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“You couldn’t find a more different batch of women than the Briar Club, Reka often thought, but after so many suppers together they had somehow acquired a shared funny bone, a way of setting each other off that made the laughter contagious when the right joke caught fire.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Fertility suppressants had been debated and studied for decades, but medical trials were finally carried out in the fifties when the extraordinary Dr. John Rock was recruited to the cause: a fertility specialist who did indeed state that religion made a very poor scientist and whose Catholic faith didn’t interfere with his belief in contraception as an aid to women’s health.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Gumbo starts with a good roux plus the holy trinity—onions, bell peppers, celery. Then you add chicken, sausage, sometimes shrimp—”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“A successful dinner party needs just one person all the others loathe, Pete—it gives everyone something to unite against.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“when would she stop being surprised that so much time had passed? When would she stop thinking What the hell happened?”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“When you had spent so much of your life just surviving, it was such a pleasure to drift. Such a strange sensation to be able to thrive.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“No gin buzz felt as good as this: the buzz of doing what you adored.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club

“Frederic Morrow, adviser to the Commerce Department and later the first Black man to hold an executive position at the White House, commented that most of the white secretaries in the office steno pool refused to work for him, even as he was routinely insulted and sidelined by the administration supposedly soliciting his opinion. He would go on to become the first Black vice president of Bank of America and write several books, including Black Man in the White House. Claire’s other employer, Senator”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club