#emma

The simplest of women are wonderful liars who can extricate themselves from the most difficult dilemmas with a skill bordering on genius. ↗

— Guy de Maupassant

#difficult #dilemmas #extricate #genius #liars

I am Emma Woodhouse. I feel for her, of her and in her. I have a different sort of snobbism, but I understand her snobbism. Her priggishness. I admire it. I know she does wrong things, she tries to organize other people's lives, she can't see Mr Knightley is a man in a million. She's temporarily silly, yet all the time one knows she's basically intelligent. Creative, determined to set the highest standards. A real human being. ↗

— John Fowles

#intelligence #jane-austen #mr-knightley #snobbery #intelligence

The tormenting dilemma of the Middle East is this: either we have one people too many, or one state too few. ↗

— Afif Safieh

#east #either #few #many #middle

Well, I would have much preferred to have had a normal childhood. I would have loved it if my greatest dilemma, at 14, was whether to go to Benetton for my pullovers. I would have preferred not to have cried all the tears I have cried. ↗

— Marjane Satrapi

#cried #dilemma #go #greatest #had

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time. ↗

— Libba Bray

#doyle #gemma #art

A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well. God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen. ↗

— Libba Bray

#gemma-doyle #humor #libba-bray #rebel-angels #business

Entering by the carré, a piece of mirror- glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy, and my eyelids swollen and purple. On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me - my heart seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why and for whom I despaired. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#lucy-snowe #madame-beck #paul-emmanuel #unmarriageble #villette

I shook my head. “I’m just afraid that if you go through those gates and get on that plane that I will never…” “Babe, don’t do this. It’s us. We are meant for each other. No matter what we’ll be together. No amount of distance will change that. Besides, you have an awesome internship opportunity at MBC news. You’re meant to be here,” Emma said. “So are you. You’re meant to be here with me,” I said, pulling our hands to my chest, directly over my heart. “Listen, you want to do something crazy with me, Emma? Let’s start our lives together today. Let’s skip all of this and start over. I don’t know what our lives will turn out to be but I know that my future needs you in it. I choose us,” I paused, gathering the strength to ask her a question I already knew the answer to. “What do you choose? ↗

— Alexandria Rhodes

#like-crazy #romance-love #spotlight-series #will #change

Surplus meant unnecessary. Not required. You couldn’t be a Surplus if you were needed by someone else. You couldn’t be a Surplus if you were loved. ↗

— Gemma Malley

#death #declaration #gemma #life #love

Yeah.” I took another deep breath. “I’m gonna die, Emma.” “You mean eventually, right?” She blinked, and I could tell it hadn’t sunk in. “Please tell me you’re making some kind of big-picture philosophical statement about the inevitability of death and the transient nature of human existence.” “Not eventually, Em. Sometime on Thursday. ↗

— Rachel Vincent

#emma #kaylee #death