Hard Times

No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them; but Rachael had taken great pity on him years ago,and to her alone he had opened his close heart all this time,on the subject of his miseries; and he knew very well that if he were free to ask her, she would take him. He thought of the home he might at that moment have been seeking with pleaure and pride; of the different man he might have been that night; of the lightness then in his now heavy-laden breast; of the then restored honour,self-respect,and tranquility all torn to pieces. He thought of the waste of the best part of this life,of the change it made in his character for the worse every day,of the dreadful nature of his existence,bound hand and foot, to a dead woman,and tormented by a demon in her shape. He thought of Rachael,how young when they were first brought together in these circumstances,how mature now,how soon to grow old. He thought of the number of girls and women she had seen marry,how many homes with children in them she had seen grow up around her, how she contentedly pursued her own lone quiet path- for him- and how he had sometimes seen a shade of melancholy on her blessed face, that smote him with remorse and despair. He set the picture of her up, beside the infamous image of last night; and thought, Could it be, that the whole earthly course of one so gentle,good,and self-denying, was subjugate to such a wretch as that!
Filled with these thoughts- so filled that he had unwholesome sense of growing larger, of being placed in some new and diseased relation towards the objects among which he passed, of seeing the iris round every misty light turn red- he went home for shelter.

- (Stephen Blackpool in monologue)Charles Dickens, p.72(1854)

Hard Times

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say,good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by,dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within- or sometimes only maim him and distort him!

- Charles Dickens, 3rd person narrative:omniscient;intrusive. p.7(1854)

Hard Times

"I'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with representations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality- in fact? Do you?"

"Yes,Sir!" from one half. "No,Sir!" from the other.

"Of course,No," said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong half. "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don't have in fact. What is called Taste, is only another name for Fact."

- (Mr. Gradgrind to the pupils in his model school)Charles Dickens,p.5,(1854)

The Man Who Turned Into Himself

"What was that line in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories? 'Once you have eliminated the impossible,then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'..."

- (Conversation between Dr. Michael J. Tickelbakker and Richard A. Hamilton at Chez
Arnaud) David Ambrose, p.166,(1993)

My Sister's Keeper

"What do you want me to say, Julia? I wasn't good enough for you. You deserved better than some freak who might fall down frothing at the mouth any old minute."
Julia goes perfectly still. "You might have let me make up my own mind."
"What difference would it have made? Like you really would have gotten great satisfaction guarding me like Judge does when it happens, wiping after me, living at the end of my life." I shake my head. "You were so incredibly independent. A free spirit. I didn't want to be the one who took that away from you."

"Well, if I'd had the choice, maybe I wouldn't have spent the past fifteen years thinking there was something the matter with me."

"You?" I start to laugh. "Look at you. You're a knockout. You're smarter than I am. You're on a career track and you're family-centred and you probably can even balance your checkbook."

"And I'm lonely, Campbell," Julia adds. "Why do you think I had to learn to act to independent? I also get mad too quickly, and I hog the covers, and my second toe is longer than my big one. My hair has its own zip code. Plus, I get certifiably crazy when I've got PMS. You don't love someone because they're perfect," she says. "You love them in spite of the fact that they're not."

I don't know how to respond to that; it's like being told after thirty-five years that the sky, which I've seen as a brilliant blue, is in fact rather green.

"And another thing- this time, you don't get to leave me. I'm going to leave you."

If possible, that only makes me feel worse. I try to pretend it doesn't hurt, but I don't have the energy. "So go."

Julia settles next to me. "I will," she says. "In another fifty or sixty years."

- (Conversation between Julia Romano and Campbell Alexander at the courthouse) Jodi Picoult, p.370 (2004)

My Sister's Keeper

When I first became a parent I used to lie in bed at night and imagine the most horrible succession of maladies; the bite of a jellyfish, the taste of a poisonous berry, the smile of a dangerous stranger, the dive into a shallow pool. There are so many ways a child can be harmed that it seems nearly impossible one person alone could succeed at keeping him safe. As my children got older, the hazards only changed: inhaling glue, playing with matches, small pink pills sold behind the bleachers of the middle school. You can stay up all night and still not count all the ways to lose the people you love.

-(Sara Fitzgerald in monologue) Jodi Picoult, p.226 (2004)

Summer Sisters

"How was the plane trip?" her mother asked.
Caitlin was motioning for her to hurry. She pointed across the room to eerie-looking shadowa dancing across the windows.
"The plane?" Vix asked.
"Yes, the plane," her mother repeated.
Caitlin threw a towel over her head and walked toward Vix, arms outstretched like a zombie. Sweetie started barking, excited by Caitlin's antics. "The place was okay," she told her mother. Already it felt like ages ago. Her first trip on a plane. She wondered if all the firsts in her life would go by so quickly, and be forgotten just as quickly.

-(phone conversation between Victoria 'Vix' Leonard and her mother)Judy Blume, p.23
(1998)

ed: Breezed through this one in 6hours, it had it's moments but the prose is forgettable and there was an abundance of sexualisation on everything. Not great, but alright.