The Saucy Wenches Book Club

“I have found it to be absolutely astounding, all the trouble living has turned out to be. Things nobody ever warned me about. “I wish someone would have thought to say to me, earlier on, ‘Sybil, over and over again serpents will emerge from the bottom of the sea and grab you by the feet.’ Of course I didn’t say anything of the sort to my own children, and I probably never would.” ~ Virginia Evans, The Correspondent: A Novel

“What’s different now from 1804 or 1904 is that tuberculosis is curable, and has been since the mid-1950s. We know how to live in a world without tuberculosis. But we choose not to live in that world.” ~ John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis

“And remember,” the voice said, “what is laughter but a moment of release where pain and memory are washed away? When we laugh, we are stronger. When we laugh, we heal the world.” ~ Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark

To borrow a human expression: fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. And also, fuck that pea-brained software developer to Hell. ~ Barbara Truelove, Of Monsters and Mainframes

Each day, I was building a life of my choosing, and it was a good life. I knew what was missing, but I was also appreciative of what was there. ...The new land had chosen to keep me, and I responded with every bit of determination and care that this honor deserved. ~ Shelley Read, Go as a River

“2010! To have been alive then in those resourceful raucous times, when the sea stood off at a respectful distance, when you could walk in any direction as far as you liked and keep your feet dry.” ~ Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

“Their system isn’t for us,” her mother said. “We were left out of their calculations from the start.” “The PMs are supposed to promote human flourishing.” “The question is who gets to be a human. That has always been the question.” ~ Ray Nayler, Where the Axe Is Buried

“You hold on to her. But who could hold on to the wind? And—better yet—who would be so foolish as to trust—to love—such a wild being?” ~ Rebecca Ross, Wild Reverence

“But I’m starting to think Thoreau might have been full of shit. If we aren’t living for others, maybe we aren’t really living.” ~ Jess Walter, So Far Gone

“So long as you can hear the waters, everything seems possible: that the sun is the moon, that a star is a cloud, that dusk is dawn, and everything is both hallowed and haunted at the same time.” ~ Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

I’ve read history. Things weren’t always this way. They don’t have to go on being this way. What we have broken we can mend. ~ Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

If he was the sun, by the old gods, she was the moon. Powerful, dark, and overbearing at times. She never left him, nor he her, as if they danced around each other for eternity. ~ Amber V. Nicole, The Dawn of the Cursed Queen

“...something about you had to mellow with age, given that your temperament wouldn’t budge an inch. It was left to your eyes to soften, and they are lovelier now than ever. So no, Mrs. Ballard, you might not be pretty, but I’ll be damned if you are not the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” ~ Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River

“ The things that we love tell us what we are. If I ever get a tattoo, it’s going to be that, right across the top of my chest.” ~ Patrick Ryan, Buckeye

“Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?…It is because people think only about their own business, and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doers to light…. My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.” ~ Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice

“Whenever i got close to him, the rational part of my brain fucked off to the moon.” ~ Navessa Allen, Caught Up

Admiring the sky served no evolutionary purpose whatsoever; in the Pliocene epoch, it might even have been dangerous. So who was it that first stopped in their tracks at the sight of a sunrise? Thought, Holy crap, that’s a beautiful thing? ~ Eric Puchner, Dream State

“Lies could be told with such liberating ease — they tasted better on the tongue than hard facts.” ~ Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

Strength, I had learned, was like this littered forest floor, built of small triumphs and infinite blunders, sunny hours followed by sudden storms that tore it all down. We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again, and hoping for the best. ~ Shelley Read, Go as a River

“I would throw away my pack, my life, and my entire world for you. Which is the exact reason I cannot have you.” ~ Ali Hazelwood, Mate

“...all we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character — what we believe — none of it is real; it’s all part of the story we tell. But here’s the thing: it’s our goddamned story!” ~ Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“I didn’t know it was happiness at the time, because it felt like busyness and exhaustion and financial stress and self doubt.” ~ Virginia Evans, The Correspondent: A Novel

The only thing surprising about any of this is that he’s alive to see it. That’s the real bet they all made, isn’t it? It will come. But not until we’re gone. ~ Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Light Pirate

He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same. ~ SenLinYu, Alchemised

It seemed ridiculous, but perhaps these books, sheaves of paper made from trees that had once grown on their home planet, full of made-up stories, were what kept Thebes so much more grounded than the rest of them. ~ Lily Brooks-Dalton, Good Morning, Midnight

“I prefer teaching [about] the post-2015 period, when social media were beginning to be drawn into the currency of private lives, when waves of fantastical or malevolent or silly rumours began to shape the nature not only of politics but of human understanding. Fascinating! It was as if credulous medieval masses had burst through into modernity, rushing into the wrong theatre and onto the wrong stage set.” ~ Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

“...you are one of the good people. I hope whatever you choose to do with all that I leave you, you do it for the other good people in the world. The poets and the musicians and the book readers. The kind ones and the carers, the people who pursue the happiness of others over the accumulation of wealth and power. Do it for them and make the world a little bit better.” ~ Gareth Brown, The Society of Unknowable Objects

“Her servers are in pieces.” “Pieces can be put back together.” “She’s dead.” Frankenstein smiles a slow smile. “Dead things coming back to life is my whole brand, Doctor.” They stride toward the door. “I’ll tell her you love her. Enjoy your new arms.” ~ Barbara Truelove, Of Monsters and Mainframes

My dad always said a person needs three things to be happy: something to do; someone to love; and something to look forward to.” ~ Annie Hartnett, The Road to Tender Hearts

“...art is a fragile magic, just like love, and that’s humanity’s only defense against death. That we create and paint and dance and fall in love, that’s our rebellion against eternity. Everything beautiful is a shield.” ~ Fredrik Backman, My Friends

This is it. This is what a life is. A journey with no signposts. The seas roll out in every direction. ~ Amity Gaige, Sea Wife

“A thousand plus worlds he has seen, yet when he dreams, he dreams of you.” ~ Amber V. Nicole, The Throne of Broken Gods

...a person is not beautiful because they’re good, they’re beautiful because they’re alive, like a child. Alive and curious and restless. Never mind good. They’re beautiful because there’s a light in their eyes. Sometimes destructive, sometimes hurtful, sometimes selfish, but beautiful because alive. And progress is like that, by its nature alive. ~ Samantha Harvey, Orbital

How these insane things kept happening, these eruptions of senseless violence, of anger and ignorance and greed and mendacity, like ancient fissures bubbling up under the surface, and what — we were just supposed to go on with our lives? Wake up the next day like nothing happened, like we hadn’t lost our minds? Just turn the page, to the baseball scores or the horoscopes or celebrity birthdays? ~ Jess Walter, So Far Gone

“It was, she supposed, a way of defying death. Necessities helped people survive, but joyful excess gave them life.” ~ Annalee Newitz, Automatic Noodle

Deep down, instead of princes, I thought maybe every woman wanted gentle monsters. Someone strong — scary enough to keep all the bad things away — and gentle only to those he loved. ~ Michelle Gross, One Percent of You

“What did the Ginians keep in the hearts of their mazes if not gold and jewels?” Terlu, the former Fourth Librarian of the Second Floor, East Wing, smiled at the little rose. “Books, of course, the ultimate treasure. All their stories. And their knowledge.” ~ Sarah Beth Durst, The Enchanted Greenhouse

Historically speaking, important truths often begin their lives as total impossibilities. And just because we can’t imagine how something could possibly be true, doesn’t mean we can’t observe it to be true. ~ Dan Brown, The Secret of Secrets

Those who had nothing substantial to brag about bragged the loudest. Stay silent and ignore the chattering crowd — this was proof you had something real to be proud of. ~ R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

...a strange thing happened when they stormed the dock, dicks flapping, and whooped into the lake: the beer and the drugs and the attempted sorcery of pretending to be young made them actually young. Water was the missing ingredient. It was what the spell needed. The imperfections of their bodies dissolved into the lake. They lost their beer guts and their spare tires, their shin splints and torn meniscuses, anything that made them look half-comic when they ran. They were twenty again, svelte and handsome and bombed out of their minds. ~ Eric Puchner, Dream State

“I guess there’s no bottom to a person, but I feel you have left fewer stones unturned than anyone else who’s ever passed through, and it’s taken me some time to recognize how knowing you has been like coming in from the cold, lonely road to find a warm fire and a table laid, so thank you for that....” ~ Virginia Evans, The Correspondent: A Novel

There are patches of green woods, and I am their biggest fan. I root for them out here on the plain. Go Go Go Grow Grow Grow! That’s our fight song. I yell it out the window as I fly low over. The green patches are spreading year by year. Life is tenacious if you give it one little bit of encouragement ~ Peter Heller, The Dog Stars

“Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. The smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.” ~ Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“Yeah, they still make duct tape. And it still holds the universe together.” ~ Dennis E. Taylor, We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

“To the child in each of us, yearning to be special. Take my hand, you strange little creature, and together we shall walk beyond the wall.” ~ Rachel Gillig, The Knight and the Moth

“I like knowing I can be of value to someone, more than just a bank account. I like knowing that I can offer my humor, my touch, my mind ... my soul. I like knowing that I’m helpful, that I can bring joy. That’s very much my love language.” ~ Meghan Quinn, Till Summer Do Us Part

All struggles Are essentially power struggles. Who will rule, Who will lead, Who will define, refine, confine, design, Who will dominate. All struggles Are essentially power struggles, And most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together. ~ Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

After all, it is probable that the humans are unaware how prevalent a threat vampires and werewolves have become in modern space travel. ~ Barbara Truelove, Of Monsters and Mainframes

“Every living thing on this planet, including human beings, are products of nature, squirrel,” he said. “Humans may believe that we are in charge, but we shouldn’t be, because we can’t be trusted with that power. We need to acknowledge the things that are still wild, the things that have survived us. We need to remember that this”—he gestured at the trees around us, the falling snow, the vanished deer—“is what we are supposed to be part of. ~ Janelle Brown, What Kind of Paradise

“It might sound like an unhappy ending, but only if you forget how many times during this story we’ve told you that someone laughed. How many really good nows is that? How many people ever have more?” ~ Fredrik Backman, My Friends