#courtship

What is wrong with the [tale of] Two Swords?" he asked, even more surprised. "Don't you care for it?" "There is too bloody much romance in it," she said curtly. Ah, well, here was the crux of it, apparently. "Don't you like romance?" he ventured. She looked as though she were trying to decide if she should weep or, as he had earlier predicted, stick him with whatever blade she could lay her, hand on. "I don't know," she said briskly. "I see," he said, though he didn't. He wished, absently, that he'd had at least one sister. He was very well versed in what constituted courtly behavior and appropriate formal wooing practices, thanks to his father's insistence on many such lectures delivered by a dour man whose only acquaintance with women had likely come from reading about them in a book, but he had absolutely no idea how to proceed with a woman whose first instinct when faced with something that made her uncomfortable was to draw her sword. ... "I'll stop provoking you, but I will have the answer to a question. Why do you think most men woo?" "Because they have no sword skill and need something with which to occupy their time? ↗

— Lynn Kurland

#female-fighter #wooing #men

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship. ↗

— Joseph Addison

#constancy #courtship #generally #long #love

I stopped looking for a Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare. ↗

— Charles Bukowski

#dreams

It would be a primal offering of food from man to woman and a satisfyingly primitive declaration of intent. However, he mused, one could never be sure these days who would be offended by being handed a dead mallard bleeding from a breast full of tooth-breaking shot and sticky about the neck with dog saliva. ↗

— Helen Simonson

#humor #food

Jack shook his head. 'Books. What is it with women and books? My sisters were the same. They were always buying books for boys they fancied.' Ellie bent down and picked up the stone and put it on the table. 'It's like sending a love letter without having to write it yourself,' she said softly. ↗

— Hazel Osmond

#courtship #love-letters #love

Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood. ↗

— Laurence Sterne

#attentions #consists #courtship #nor #number

It's no good choosing your first husband from a school for evil geniuses. Much too difficult to kill. ↗

— Gail Carriger

#humor #marriage #humor

I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. ↗

— Washington Irving

#courtship #humor #humor-relationships #women #humor

You might be surrounded by clouds, but you'll be like sunshine to me. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#humor #love #rose-hathaway #humor

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand -- they only. Know this at last. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#conscience #courtship #dignity #empowerment #feminism