The Saucy Wenches Book Club

They came for you, she says. They came and they died. And you don’t know how to feel about that. Or you’re feeling many things right now. All these things that humans love to write poems about. Have you ever listened to a poem? That’s how humans really sing, isn’t it? ~ Paul Yoon, Etna

Wynn thought that if wolves sang, and coyotes, and elk and birds, and wind, and we, too, it was probably in response to a music we didn’t know we could hear. ~ Peter Heller, The River

“Lionesses. Us. Can’t you just see it Ellie? Someday, you and me — we’ll do great things. We’ll live life for ourselves. And we will help others. We are cubs now, maybe. But we will grow to be lionesses. Strong women who will make things happen.” ~ Marjan Kamali, The Lion Women of Tehran

“I think he got dicked by the dangling dong of destiny, that’s what I think.” ~ Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel

Don said, “You never believed in fate.” Rodney snorted. “No. You and me? We weren’t destined to be. We’re here because we worked for it. We worked hard. We survived some of the worst things people can live through. It’s not fate. It was you and me who did it. No one and nothing else.” ~ T.J. Klune, We Burned So Bright

“You need to be someone worth falling in love with — you teach them how to love you by showing them who you are.” ~ Rufi Thorpe, Margo’s Got Money Troubles

“People are art,” he said. “It’s enough to just watch the people.” ~ Ann Patchett, Whistler

Once, she heard a guy refer to her as “sex on a stick,” and although she actually had no idea what that meant, she understood it to be a superpower. ~ Jenny Jackson, The Shampoo Effect

All that matters is that he does care and that he wants Charlie to know it. He never wants Charlie to doubt it. Maybe that’s the trick to relationships — with friends or lovers or colleagues who become something like family. ~ Cat Sebastian, Star Shipped

It was the most important day of my life. The day I stopped working on my husband, my farm, my family, and returned to work on an old, beloved project: myself. I walked back inside to make dinner for my family. After dinner, I knocked myself up again. ~ Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear

The prime directive of all living beings is simple — do what you must — but only the wicked do what they can. ~ W.H. Chizmar, Them

And I wonder how I ever believed not falling in love with this male was an option. How I ever believed I was capable of pulling myself from his atmosphere. ~ Sarah A. Parker, The Ballad of Falling Dragons

There was something about him slightly more suggestible than other children, a thinness between the world he lived in and the world of stories. Not entirely unexpected of a child of two people devoted to books. ~ Daniel Mason, Country People

Mostly, Mad just didn’t like feeling any more uncomfortable than she already would be, filing into a huge arena to watch a sport that, truth be told, she didn’t exactly comprehend. But they were here, right? This is what a family did. They showed up for things they didn’t totally understand and wore uncomfortable clothes and they shouted your name nonstop because they wanted you to understand that, win or lose, they loved you. ~ Kevin Wilson, Run for the Hills

—Not a preamble. A beginning. And it’s too late now to make a difference to the outcome. All we can do is choose who we will save. —And let everyone else go hang? She smiled at me, a tight little smile. —Or save no one at all. ~ Jessie Greengrass, The High House

“A Dirty Shirley,” I said. “Yeah, I want to try that one.” “Cats don’t drink cocktails,” I said. “Cats don’t shoot lasers from their eyes, either, but here we are, Carl. Mama needs a night off.” ~ Matt Dinniman, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario

“Well, I believe we’re all one. Same consciousness of awareness or whatever you want to call it. The universe is expanding now but soon — in a few more billion years — we’ll start shrinking back again to what we were before the Big Bang. We’ll get smaller and smaller and then for a moment we’ll be a tiny speck. After that they say we’ll be nothing — we won’t exist inside a black hole. Then there’ll be another bang and we’ll return....” “I have loved you all my life,” I whisper. “See you after the next bang.” ~ Lily King, Heart the Lover

She didn’t want Lee Turner to kiss her, or marry her, or fall in love with her. She wanted him to sit beside her on this porch and watch the stars with her for as long as she was still alive. She wanted to exist beside him, to be real and whole in someone else’s eyes, to bare her soul to someone and have them stay beside her anyway. ~ Kylie Lee Baker, Japanese Gothic

“Shove that shit down. So deep down it’s out of sight. Don’t spend another moment on it. Make it go from a reality to a memory to a feeling you sometimes get on winter days. Then let that feeling drive you to do somethin’ great.” ~ Madeline Cash, Lost Lambs

This happens all the time. People always think the third margarita is a good idea, and they’re always wrong. ~ Elin Hildebrand, The Five-Star Weekend