The Saucy Wenches Book Club

“No, he’s made a very good point,” said Bashford provocatively. “Women are just vessels, you know.” “That’s very true,” said Sykes, smiling angelically at him. “I myself am a seventeen-thousand-ton Dreadnought class battleship with enough firepower to destroy a medium-sized city.” ~ Jodi Taylor, An Argumentation of Historians

The octopuses do not produce representational art of living things, for to live is to change and be in constant motion. ... They create abstract sculpture..., they make poetry with their skins, they dance through strange, boneless ballets in the water. To the octopuses this is not distinct from living. ~ Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin

“Don’t choose a mediocre life for a mediocre man. Go be exceptional. If he’s worth it, he won’t judge you. And if he’s really the one, he’ll come along for the ride.” ~ Penn Cole, Spark of the Everflame

“Celie, baby, you look around at people who are happy in themselves in their lives — they’re just busy living, having a good time. They don’t set out to be mean to other people. Their energy is going into other things. It doesn’t even occur to them to hurt someone else, or to try to make them feel small. In fact, they’re more likely to be building other people up.” ~ Jojo Moyes, We All Live Here

When a dog chooses to love a human, it is a timeless affair of the soul and spirit, a meeting far beyond the mortal body. An eternal entanglement is this mingling of the souls. A loyalty beyond language and all of life’s earthly matter. ~ Kira Jane Buxton, Tartufo

“Listen. I need you to tell people this; I need you, when you get back, to tell them: the brutality is terrible. And yes: the chaos is very great. But tell them: greater than the world’s chaos are its miracles.” ~ Katherine Rundell, Impossible Creatures

Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. ~ Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

We must become a spiritual partner of science, using our vast experience—millennia of philosophy, personal inquiry, meditation, soul-searching—to help humanity build a moral framework and ensure that the coming technologies will unify, illuminate, and raise us up ... rather than destroy us. ~ Dan Brown, Origin

Human beings, Adina faxes, did not think their lives were challenging enough so they invented roller coasters. A roller coaster is a series of problems on a steel track. Upon encountering real problems, human beings compare their lives to riding a roller coaster, even though they invented roller coasters to be fun things to do on their days off. ~ Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland

They would think she was savoring the taste (blueberries, cinnamon, cream — excellent), but she was actually savoring the whole morning, trying to catch it, pin it down, keep it safe before all those precious moments became yet another memory. ~ Liane Moriarty, What Alice Forgot

“It’s hard.” “What is?” “Being alive.” “It is,” Arthur agreed. “But perhaps that’s the point: the trials and tribulations of life weigh heavily upon us, but we find people to help lighten the load.” ~ T.J. Klune, Somewhere Beyond the Sea

The ships saved a million lives, but when the tycoon died his heirs reconsidered this legacy. They formed a partnership with a shrewd pharmaceutical astronaut and began developing therapies they identified as “crucial to an orderly future.” ~ Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” ~ Carley Fortune, This Summer Will Be Different

Reading a novel was like returning to a once-beloved holiday destination. ~ Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies

People do not get “heavy” with wisdom. They get light. The wiser you become, the lighter you become. This is an unsolicited testimonial for lightheartedness... ~ Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

“So I preached from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight: the parable of the importunate widow. It’s one I’ve always liked. A widow is so persistent in her demands for justice that she overcomes the resistance of a judge who fears neither God nor man. She wears him down. Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn’t always safe, but it’s often necessary.” ~ Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower