The Saucy Wenches Book Club

Outlander, Starz “You asked me, Captain, if I were a witch,” I said, my voice low and steady. “I’ll answer you now. Witch I am. Witch, and I curse you. You will marry, Captain, and your wife will bear a child, but you shall not live to see your firstborn. I curse you with knowledge, Jack Randall—I give you the hour of your death.” ~ Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

“Witching and women’s rights. Suffrage and spells. They’re both...” She gestures in midair again. “They’re both a kind of power, aren’t they? The kind we aren’t allowed to have.” The kind I want, says the hungry shine of her eyes. ~ Alix E. Harrow, The Once and Future Witches

“Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.”   ― R.A. Salvatore, Exile

Compassion is perilous. When there is nothing left of you but an empty vessel, a black hole, immune to the blows of life—the loneliness and confusion, the profound disappointment, the anger—it is the kind word that breaches the event horizon, that rips your heart back open, that compels you to once again suffer the concussion of your existence. ~ Tommy Butler, Before You Go: A Novel

“And yet I found myself deciding that if you took his hand, I would find a way to live with it. It would be your choice.” ... “And if he had grabbed me?” There was nothing but uncompromising will in his eyes. “Then I would have torn apart the world to get you back.” ~ Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“Drink chamomile tea to calm the spirit. Feed a cold and starve a fever. Read as many books as you can. Always choose courage. Never watch another woman burn. Know that love is the only answer.” ~ Alice Hoffman, Magic Lessons

If everyone looked the other way, then everybody was in on it. If he looked the other way, he was as implicated as the rest. That’s how he saw it, how he’d always seen things. ~ Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

Maybe there were people who lived those lives. Maybe this girl was one of them. But what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. ~ Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

So much for Midwestern hospitality. At least in New York, our neighbors had brought us cookies when we moved in. (They’d been gluten-free and laced with LSD, but it was the thought that counted.) ~ Emily Henry, Beach Read

There were scythes who refused to allow anyone but their own party onboard, and others who opened their planes to as many people as they could carry. It was a true test of a scythe’s integrity. ~ Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead ( Arc of a Scythe #2)

“Sharpie? You named your sword Sharpie?” “We’re supposed to be incognito, Tori. What if someone overheard me talking about my Fiery Deathbringer or Warblade of Murderous Doom?” “They’d probably think you were talking about a video game.” ― Annette Marie, Three Mages and a Margarita

“Remember that feeling you described—the ‘horrific crush of humanity’ on your soul—maybe that’s another way of saying you’re afraid people will hurt you if you let them get close.” ~ Glendy Vanderah, Where the Forest Meets the Stars

“Because you’ve been fidgeting like you have spiders in your gown since the beginning of this,” he answered. Spiders in my gown? If I had spiders in my gown, I wouldn’t be fidgeting. I’d be screaming and stripping down to nothing. I wouldn’t care at all who witnessed it. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout, From Blood and Ash

While it might be true that we still loved each other when we argued, it didn’t mean that we loved ourselves. ~ Alex North, The Whisper Man

“She didn’t understand that when you truly love someone and they love you in return, you ruin your lives together. That is not a curse, it’s what life is, my girl. We all come to ruin, we turn to dust, but whom we love is the thing that lasts.” ~ Alice Hoffman, The Rules of Magic

“It isn’t fair to be the kind of creature who is able to love but unable to stay.” ~ Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me”—that’s intimacy. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid,  The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you’ll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won’t matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. ~ Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows