The Saucy Wenches Book Club

“You can send yourself crazy wondering. But it all happened, and here I am. There’s really no point in asking what if? The only question worth asking is: what’s next?” ~ Elton John, Me

Fiction became a friend as well as a safe harbor; a cocoon to protect her from the outside world and its dangers. ~ Emilia Hart, Weyward

“If bravery is the wind that makes us soar like kites, fear is the string that keeps us from going too far.” ~ Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man’s last romance. ~ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Miracles happen on Christmas, Pat. Everybody knows that shit.” ~ Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

“I see it now.” “What?” I ask. “Why Xaden fell for you.” ... “You’re fucking clever. Way more clever than I gave you credit for. I bet you keep him constantly annoyed.” A smile beams across her face. “How glorious.” ~ Rebecca Yarros, Iron Flame

“You were made to bring happiness. You are alive in ways we are not. You are soft and fragile. But you are complex and disturbing and sometimes foolishly brilliant.” ~ T.J. Klune, In the Lives of Puppets

“Regardless of how you behave, a lot of things are going to be out of your control because this world was made to test you. Protect your peace in whatever and every way that you can.” ~ Jessica George, Maame

“There are some advantages to being an American woman over forty who no longer has any fucks left on the shelf” ~ Jojo Moyes, Someone Else’s Shoes

“Reading lets us live in someone else’s shoes. Literature builds bridges; it makes our world larger, not smaller.” ~ R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

Perhaps one day, she said, there would be a safer time. When women could walk the earth, shining bright with power, and yet live. ~ Emilia Hart, Weyward

“Light is only possible through dialogue between cultures, not through rejection of one or the other.” ~ James McBride, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

“I don’t think he meant to kiss me,” I said finally. “What? Did he slip and fall on your mouth? Those things are known to happen.” ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout, Obsidian

I’ve tried to make sense of how someone who didn’t stalk his victims in advance ended up going after the best and the brightest. And I think that’s it, the thing they all had in common — a light that outshone his. ~ Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

A thing taken by force would always be a pale shadow of something given freely. ~ V.E. Schwab, The Fragile Threads of Power

All this long winter long, the song sparrow in his pine tree pulpit has been teaching me that one exuberant, unceasing song can change everything. ~ Margaret Renkl, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

Still, Amelia had not allowed herself to be certain until dessert, when she’d asked him about the book that had had the greatest influence on his life, and he’d replied Principles of Accounting, Part II . Gently, she tells him no, she would rather not go out again. ~ Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

And she had lost sight of this, these things worth saving. She had been too concerned with those who deserved to be damned. ~ Hugh Howey, Dust ( Silo #3)

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again. ~ Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

How to stop time: kiss. How to travel in time: read. How to escape time: music. How to feel time: write. How to release time: breathe. ~ Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

“Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.” ~ Rebecca Yarros, Iron Flame

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” ~ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“My mother told me we are all like roses. I always thought it means that we opened our petals, took our true form, and gradually withered. But perhaps we never stop growing. If women are flowers, we are not roses, but day’s eyes — blooming not once, but over and over, each time the light touches us.” ~ Samantha Shannon, A Day of Fallen Night

“What I like about you is your attitude. You may be astonishingly stupid, but your outlook on life is so limited it gives you a cheery optimism. Cheers me right up.” ~ Molly McGhee, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind

“Do you know how many grand romances would have avoided tragedy if the hero had thought, ‘You know, maybe I should ask her if she likes me first’?” ~ Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

The strain of being a full-fledged adult every day had grown tiresome. ~ Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“Don’t let the best parts of life pass you by because you’re too scared of the unknown.” ~ Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

Mary, whose longing for precision and clarity extended even into language, thought that there really should be a word for this particular kind of explaining boys did to girls. ~ Daniel Mason, North Woods

“We’ve talked about this,” said Jamie mildly. “Murder can’t be your first choice every time you don’t like something.” ~ Sangu Mandanna, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

“Gifts are fragile. You must never entrust yours to people who might break it.” ~ Stephen King, Holly

She felt all-peopled-out after the morning and wanted to go home, close the curtains, and hug a book until her nerves settled. ~ India Holton, The Secret Service of Tea and Treason

“I would rather lose this entire war than live without you, and if that means I have to prove myself over and over, then I’ll do it. You gave me your heart, and I’m keeping it.” ~ Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“Sounds risky.” I’M A CAT, I CAN HANDLE RISK. WORST-CASE SCENARIO IS I LOSE EVERYTHING AND I STILL GET FED AND HAVE A PLACE TO NAP. “That’s ... a surprisingly chill way of thinking about things.” SOMETIMES IT’S BETTER NOT TO BE A HUMAN, CHARLIE. ~ John Scalzi, Starter Villain

“I pray that my days will be long at your side. Let me fill and satisfy every longing in your soul. May your hand be in mine, by sun and by night. Let our breaths twine and our blood become one, until our bones return to dust. Even then, may I find your soul still sworn to mine.” ~ Rebecca Ross, Divine Rivals

She was young enough to think that drama was something you had to run toward. She had no idea that drama doesn’t need to be chased. It knows exactly where you live. ~ Sarah Addison Allen, Other Birds

“Help me out here, Mr. Fikry. Tell me you have a background in education or child development or some such.” “Um . . . I was on my way to a PhD in American literature before I quit that to open this bookstore. My specialty was Edgar Allan Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher is a decent primer on what not to do with children.” ~ Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“I want you, Elsie. All the time. I think of you. All. The. Fucking. Time. I’m distracted. I’m shit at work. And my first instinct, the very first time I saw you, was to run away. Because I knew that if we’d start doing this, we would never stop. And that’s exactly how it is. There is no universe in which I’m going to let you go. I want to be with you, on you, every second of every day. I think — I dream of crazy things.” ~ Ali Hazelwood, Love, Theoretically

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.” ~ David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI

She was a great girl-shaped forest. She was a thing on fire. Her hand was leaves and smoke and snow and flesh all at once. ~ Mona Awad, Bunny

She was always doing that, telling him stories. Prying open cracks for magic to seep in, making the world a place of possibility. ~ Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts

“Dragon relationships are absolutely incomprehensible,” I murmur. “Yeah? You should try a human one sometime. Just as vicious, but less fire.” ~ Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.” ~ Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

To Lila, Kell had always been a pane of glass tilted toward her just so, so that where others saw only colors and streaks, she saw the truth of it. Of him. ~ V.E. Schwab, The Fragile Threads of Power

How profligate America was with her apples! How had I never noticed? Less than two centuries ago, not a seed had touched the soil, and now they were everywhere, dropped by bare-armed boys with juicy chins, gentry passing in their carriages, lovers who in distant fields had hurled the cores and turned to different past-times. [snip] ...it was as if one might subtract all matter but the apple tree and still see, in what remained, the contours of the world. ~ Daniel Mason, North Woods

“What do you think my chances are there?” she asked. “Maybe he has a geriatric kink,” I said, shaking out my napkin. “Dab a little Metamucil behind each ear and go get him, cougar.” “No, no,” Mary Alice corrected. “She’s too old to be a cougar. She’s a saber-tooth tiger.” ~ Deanna Raybourn, Killers of a Certain Age

“My job is about being right. Always. If I’m ever wrong, I must make use of all my means and resources to bend and align reality according to my mistake so that it ceases to be a mistake.” ~ Hernan Diaz, Trust

“You lie down with snakes, you get up with the urge to bite back. All I’m saying.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“You know better than this. You can’t fix him.” ~ Cassidy Hutchinson, Enough

“Did you train that cat to attack people?” Jacobs asked. “No,” I said. “She’s just a good judge of character.” ~ John Scalzi, Starter Villain

“Maybe there is another who sees life not as a flickering candle but as a torch that can illuminate an undiscovered world.” ~ Jimmy Buffett, A Salty Piece of Land