The Saucy Wenches Book Club

“They will not break me. Fuck them all. They will not break me. But I will break them. This is my promise to myself, to my friends, and to you, anyone who reads these words. I will break them all.”   Crawler Carl, 25th Edition of The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook ~ Matt Dinniman, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook ( Dungeon Crawler Carl #3)

“Sometimes the story isn’t the one you came to write but the one that finds you instead.” ~ Cameron Crowe, The Uncool

The grief that must fill the world is incomprehensible. Our small dose felt as large as the sun, didn’t it? ~ Virginia Evans, The Correspondent: A Novel

She made me feel alive. She made me want to fight to keep living, to not let the monsters and the darkness win, because it was so much better being surrounded by her light. And if her penchant for taser play had taught me anything, she could more than put me in my place if necessary. She was my match, my queen, and I would spend the rest of my life worshipping her like one if she let me. ~ Navessa Allen, Caught Up

“Everything is connected. The wing of the corn beetle affects the direction of the wind, the way the sand drifts, the way the light reflects into the eye of man beholding his reality. All is part of totality, and in this totality man finds his hozro , his way of walking in harmony, with beauty all around him.” ~ Tony Hillerman, The Ghostway

The varieties of silence are as numerous as those of speech or thought. Or of listening. ~ Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

... It’s about learning to live in partnership with one another in small communities, and at the same time, working out a sustainable partnership with our environment. It’s about treating education and adaptability as the absolute essentials that they are. ~ Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“Bless your heart,” I said. “And that means?” Solentine raised his eyebrows. “ Eat dirt and die. I should’ve let Krasta slice up your arm. You’re an insufferable ass.” ~ Ilona Andrews, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me

From beyond the grave, her mother had told her that women should not be men’s servants. They should stand alongside men as intellectual equals. And yet, somehow, she has found herself in thrall to a man who reduces her. He encourages her to think and read and write, but only in a way that agrees with his thoughts, that doesn’t question his ideas. ~ Caroline Lea, Love, Sex, and Frankenstein

“I think it’s the only form of hope we have. For our survival, I mean. What good is any other virtue without love? “In literature love is a weakness. Othello is easily manipulated by Iago because of his love for Desdemona. Anna Karenina throws herself under a train. Othello places his trust in Iago, not Desdemona. Anna Karenina’s society does not allow her to be with Vronsky. “Love is not the weakness. People get in its way. People are weak and perilous, not love.” ~ Lily King, Heart the Lover

But there are no new thoughts. They’re just old thoughts born into new moments – and in these moments is the thought: without that earth we are all finished. We couldn’t survive a second without its grace, we are sailors on a ship on a deep, dark unswimmable sea. ~ Samantha Harvey, Orbital

“My brothers have my measure when it comes to fighting and dancing and thinking and reading books, but none of them is half my equal at lying insensible in the mud.” ~ George R.R. Martin, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

“We’re supposed to be partners. But you seem to think everyone in your life is a fucking tool. And either they work or they don’t. Either they do what you want them to, or they’re useless.” ~ Lily Brooks-Dalton, Ruins

“But courage and training yourself not to feel are two different things.” ~ Mason Coile (Andrew Pyper), Exiles

Nature is waiting for us to learn that we are all bound by the same rules. And to remember that, when the forest breathes out, we breathe in. When the forest thrives, we thrive. When the forest lives, we live. ~ Suzanne Simard, When the Forest Breathes

“My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit. For dinner he’s fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we’re taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some [redacted] fishermen. Don’t you wish you were here?” RJ Decker ~ Carl Hiaasen, Double Whammy

“You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.” ~ Ursula K. Leguin, The Dispossessed

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. ~ George Orwell, 1984